Buyer's Guide
Buying a home can be one of the most exciting experiences of your life. This can be true whether you've purchased several homes or you're preparing to buy for the first time.
Buyer's Guide
Buying a home can be one of the most exciting experiences of your life. This can be true whether you've purchased several homes or you're preparing to buy for the first time.
Partner with an agent
You don't need to do your house hunting all on your own. Through experience, good real estate agents know which sorts of homes might blow a buyer's checklist out of the water and become the perfect match despite not meeting all the initial criteria. Real estate agents are often privy to listings before they are uploaded to a property portal, which allows you first pick of any suitable listing as soon as they enter the market.
House hunting
Set out your wish list and your non-negotiables up front (for example, number of bedrooms or budget).
While it's good to keep an eye out for new listings online, buyers most often purchase on emotion and then justify with fact and reason, so spending too much time online and not enough time physically going to view properties will hurt your chances of finding your dream home.
Submit an offer
When deciding on what price to offer, it is useful to set three budget targets: the highest offer you can afford to make, your ideal offer, and your low-ball offer. Your real estate agent can then help you decide which of these three numbers you should put forward as your initial offer.
Read the fine print
An offer to purchase (OTP) is a legally binding agreement that lays out the terms and conditions of the property transaction between the buyer and seller. As with any contract, an OTP serves to protect the parties involved in the transaction and ensure that nothing is left to interpretation.
Once the OTP has been concluded and signed by each party, it becomes the deed of sale on the property. Don't be scared to ask questions and ensure that you understand what you are signing.
Inspections
The voetstoots clause protects the seller against all defects — including defects that he does not know about. In the instance that a seller is aware of a defect and conceals it, you will be able to take action against the seller, provided you can prove that the seller deliberately hid it, which is not an easy task. This is why a thorough inspection is so important.
Home finance
Using a bond originator like BetterBond will take the hard work out of the bond application process, without costing buyers a cent. BetterBond has found that on average, buyers who work through them save up to 0.5% on their interest rate just by shopping around.
Top Tip: acquiring pre-approval from BetterBond before you start your house hunting can help you budget more effectively from the start.
Moving date
The move-in date will depend on the time it will take to register and transfer the property into the buyer's name before agreeing upon a moving date. This process, which includes registering for the new owner's bond, cancelling the previous owner's bond, and registering the sale at the Deeds Office, can take anywhere around three months.
The move-in date is usually included in the OTP, but can be changed (if both parties agree to it) depending on how quickly the transfer process takes.
