louie

I suspect I am clutching at straws here, but does anyone know if in practice FIRB would consider allowing us to buy an existing residential property if we have applied for but not yet been granted a 136 visa?

We've seen a unit in the very block we want to buy in at considerably less than we expected (although it is up for auction so that may of course be estate agent's artistic licence!) and as there are only 18 units they only come up rarely.

We only applied for the visa a couple of weeks ago so grant isn't imminent.

Any other ideas how we could buy it?

framac

Louie, we bought with FIRB approval but I would assume that you would need to be in Aus but not sure. Try the immigration forum.

JAJ

I doubt your application in itself will make any difference. But why not talk to FIRB directly? (you're unlikely to find the answer on an online forum).

louie

We spoke to a very nice lady from the FIRB in the end but she said no. Or at least, we were welcome to apply but she considered the chances very slim indeed. Also, if we did obtain FIRB approval, we would not be able to rent the place out, which we would need to do until we are able to make the move.

So we are going to try and either get the auction conditions changed to allow a longer time to complete (i.e. until we have the visa) or to make a pre-auction offer, again with a longer time to complete. Don't hold out much hope as it is a deceased estate sale so they are no doubt keen to finalise everything. If you don't ask, you don't get though.... Mind you, a couple of units nearby have been up for auction in the last couple of months and not sold, so maybe we'll get another chance after the auction.

Anyone got any other suggestions?

julesandco

We bought land without a visa with FIRB approval (from the UK) which I appreciate is slightly different.

I know that you can't apply for FIRB until you have had an offer accepted and the address in place, so if they are looking for a very quick settlement, I suppose this won't help.

We have recently purchased an existing property whilst we are waiting for one we are building to be completed. The FIRB state that we are able to rent out our new build (upon completion), but we are unable to rent to existing dwelling. They explained this as being something to do with increasing the housing stock, but to me this makes no sense as the people we purchased from have to live somewhere???

Why did the FIRB say no? Did they give you an explanation?

Good luck anyhow - where abouts is the block?

Jules x

louie

Thought you might like an update.

FIRB said no as they will only approve new-build or land purchases in our circumstances.

So we approached the vendors' solicitors through our solicitors with some conditions, the most important of which was the contract being conditional on us obtaining a PR visa within 4 months. After a bit of discussion, they accepted as long as we were prepared to pay their costs in putting up the unit for auction again if we didn't get the visa, which didn't seem unreasonable.

The auction was this morning, our time; the unit is in Kirribilli. We had agents bidding for us so got to hear what was going on via mobile phone. What a stressful experience! We thought we were going to get it at the lower end of the price range we expected as there was a lul in the bidding (4 bidders including us) but it picked up again and eventually the bids got up to 20% over the estate agent's pre-sale estimate. Which was a bit over the top end of what our buyer's agents expected but still less than we were prepared to pay - so we won

So now all we need is a visa (oh, and a mortgage!). The courier picked up the medicals five minutes ago, PCCs were applied for 3 weeks ago and we got our acknowledgement yesterday. Two Feb applicants who applied less than a fortnight before us have caseworkers already, so it's looking quite positive. Fingers crossed now, nothing more we can do....

Thanks to our buyers agent, House Search Australia (Jacque has been known to post on here - as Jacque funnily enough!). If you need a North Shore Sydney buyers agent, we can recommend them - even if we were out there, I'd get Jacque to bid for me at auction now having heard her see off the competition

Jacque

Thanks Louie

The pleasure was ours and we're just happy that we were able to help you achieve the dream. Kirribilli waterfront- doesn't get much better than that!