struth

can anyone give me advice as to house buying in Oz
we have been to the bank so are aware of our financial limits
we have seen a house which we are interested in
so what is the next step?
do we make an approach through the real estate agent or do we find a solicitor?
how do we arrange a survey or determine if the property has any faults?
any assistance would be gratefully received.

Wendy

Ring the agent first and put in your offer. Depending where you are you will either need to fill out a contract and then the seller looks at it and if they agree to your offer and any conditions they will then sign it and you've bought the house, for others you need to make a formal offer in writing, again they'll look at it and if they agree you will then sign a contract.

You should put in conditions, such as subject to finance - subject to satisfactory survey etc. You will then get so many days to complete these tasks. Different states have different timescales for these.

You then need a conveyancer. Try to get someone who has been recommended to you if you can. Also you need to start the call rolling with your finance, and arrange a survey (if you want one done that is) and anything else you've put down as a condition - the estate agent will probably tell you how long you have to get these done.

Mrs JFW

We are just buying at the moment and things move very quickly and they seem to be very particular about time lines.

We put in our offer to the estate agent and then we went through a sale agreement contract. We put in clauses like subject to getting finance, subject to satisfactory pest and builings inspection (which like the survey), subject to searches being ok and made sure on the contract that anything you want included in the sale is added on for example garden shed, air con units etc... aparantly people take with them the most unusual things when they move. Our sellers wanted to take their newly installed solar hot water heating system????

Once the offer is agreed with the seller you are usually given 7 days to get your buildings and pest inspection done and 14 days from the date of sale agreement to get your finances sorted. This can be renegotiated with the seller though if things crop up. So you need to instruct a conveyancer asap some people may even want the conveyancer to look over the contract of sale before you sign.

In some cases you may be asked to pay a small deposit on sale agreement, we paid $500 then when all our searches, pest and bulildings stuff came back ok, we paid another $10,000 when the sale when unconditional (bit like our exchange of contracts). The final deposit etc gets paid on settlement (completion of sale) in most cases this in around 30 days from sale agreement but our sellers have asked for a delayed settlement of 60 days and we have agreed to this through our solicitor.

One thing to note is that once we agreed the sale of the property we became liable for the buildings insurance on it, so we had to insure the house that we are not yet living in.

I'm sure there may be variances on this process but thats how our sale has proceeded. We are just waiting to for the pre settlement inspection where we go round the house and check everything is in working order, thats its clean and tidy and they haven't taken anything with them that should have been left behind.

I hope that is of some help.

Jackie

SarahJane2007

Hya, first of all arrange an appointment through the real estate agent that is selling the house and go see it, if its something you like then put in an offer, once this offer is accepted then notify a solicitor of your choice, when you sign the contract you liase with the vendor as to terms...ie...14 days finance and 14 days building and pest that basically means you hve 14 days to get both arranged and finalised. on signing the contract you also state when you would like to settle. Hope that helps.

struth

thanks for all the informative advice folks

a second viewing is in order then its crunch time over will we or wont we.

i shall start to ask around to see if anyone has a recommendation for a conveyoncer (sp?)

datamile

try to do some searchs on the area around the house as you can't pull out due to anything which doesn't effect your house directly.

Once you've signed, only the conditions that you've put in the contract are what you can pull out on in the short period.

Also if you go for a long settlement, the stamp duty is still due early ( 30 days after contract or unconditional ).

Expect a load of fees for stamp, mortagage, transfer etc.

Wol

Get quotes for the conveyancing - two solicitors quoted us $4500 PLUS GST - another, who got the job, $880 inc GST!

Wendy

How much!

We paid $236 for ours

sgjonno

Does anyone know much about FIRB?
I printed off their Form R3 (Application for approval to purchase residential real estate in individual names) and saw an interesting note:

Who does NOT need approval?

foreign persons purchasing as joint tenants with their Australian citizen spouse*

*Spouse includes another person who, although not legally married to the person, lives with the person on a bona fide domestic basis as the husband or wife of the person.

I think that's pretty much what me and my girlfriend are as we live together and have been doing so for over a year (and together for 2).

Does anyone have any experience in this at all?

Timber Floor Au

You have 5 days legal cooling off period in qld.

Timber Floor Au

Yer we paid about the same, 800 or 900

Wendy 236?? you sure that wasnt for afternoon SCONES?

Wendy

Nope, it was $236. I was pretty surprised as I thought it would be more. Of course with all the stamp duty it still cost me $10k to buy my house.

augigi

I just bought a house, but happily my dad is a solicitor, so the conveyancing fees are nil (apart from certificates etc).

bobbyftm

Oh jolly good i'll give him a call when we're buying thanks !

augigi

It might be a bit more expensive for non-family members!