Buying Property? How Industry Professionals Can Save You Thousands

One of the key factors involved in making profit through purchasing property is assembling the best team of professionals to guide and support you throughout the process. Misinformation and stagnant professionals who do things because “that’s the way they’re always been done” can hold you back from innovative solutions to different aspects of purchasing property. With the right professionals on your side you’ll be armed with the knowledge to avoid being misled and to make decisions that will ultimately lead to financial gain and wealth creation.

• Specialisation – Most mortgage brokers specialise in certain areas such as first home buying or property development. This means you can employ a professional who has specific experience in the type of finance you require rather than a “jack of all trades”.
• Point of contact – A mortgage broker can keep you up to date with the progress of your finance application. They will work had to ensure a smooth process so that they can secure long-term and repeat business from you.
• Specific advice – There is a lot of lengthy paperwork and jargon involved in finance contracts. Your broker can help you understand what each term means and ensure you fully understand what you are signing.

 

Real Estate Agent/Buyers Agent
If you’re selling property a good real estate agent is a must. Not only will they have much more experience in marketing a property than you they should also pay their own fee + more if they’re a good negotiator. You are paying them to negotiate you the highest possible price and to ensure your best interests are looked after throughout the selling process.
As a buyer the selling agent does not have the obligation to look after your best interests – they’re there to ensure the best price and conditions are achieved for the seller. This is why it may be suitable for you to employ a buyer’s agent. You pay a buyer’s agent a fee to negotiate on your behalf as the buyer – this means you have an experienced professional looking after your best interests who can work to negotiate the best price and conditions within the contract that suit you.
Don’t underestimate the value of a buyer’s agent, especially if you are buying property from overseas or interstate.

Settlement Agent
A good settlement agent will make a complicated legal transaction simple and easy to understand. It is often difficult for those involved in a property purchase to understand what a settlement agent does and the importance of their job can be understated until a problem arises. Employing the right settlement agent and being able to communicate with them from the beginning of the buying process is important so that you can ask them for advice on which clauses to insert in your offer and they can take care of the complex legal paperwork involved in settling a property. A few things that could be very costly to you if you don’t employ a good settlement agent to advise you include not fulfilling your contractual duties, settlement occurring late due to something that may or may not have been your fault (for example the bank were late with finance) or not paying stamp duty on time. A good idea is to ask a potential settlement agent to give you an example of a problem that has arisen during the settlement process and how they solved that problem using their experience and knowledge.

Building & Timber Pest/Termite Inspector
Employing a suitably qualified building inspector is a must to assist you with the following:
Identifying defects that affect the structure of the property (these can be very costly to fix).

• Identifying and making you aware of health and safety hazards that may affect your family such as asbestos, mould, electrical faults and carbon monoxide.
• Identifying termites or timber pests which may chew through the timber of your home costing thousands to rectify.
• Inspecting swimming pool and spa safety barriers to avoid children drowning which is the most common cause of preventable death in Australia.
• Identifying and making recommendations on rectification of maintenance items which may not be causing fault to the structure now, but could develop into a more costly problem if preventative measures aren’t put into place.

Ensure you enquire about the experience and qualifications of your inspector, what specialised equipment they use and whether they follow up their report with a telephone consultation so that you fully understand the report and can query them should something be difficult to understand.

Property Manager
A good property manager will ensure your investment property is kept in good condition by the tenants and monies such as rent and utilities are paid on time. Not only must a property management business be able to help you with ongoing management of the property, they also need to be experts in leasing to ensure that your property is leased in a timely manner and to the right tenants. Knowledgeable property managers will advise you on issues such as the importance of landlord protection insurance, and should have streamlined processes in place that make managing your property straight-forward with solutions in place in case you do get a problem tenant.
Ask potential property managers about their processes regarding non-payment of rent by the tenant – if they do not issue the correct notices in a timely manner tenants are able to get away with non-payment of rent for weeks or months until a court date is set – all these weeks and months being time you’re spending paying for the mortgage and utilities for the property but not receiving any rental income.

By employing knowledgeable and experienced professionals at each stage throughout the buying process you will have a team who are there to generally take care of your best interests and their knowledge can be utilised to save you time, hassle and money.

This article was written by Charlotte Flatt
Cap-It-All Building Inspections Perth