You are probably preparing yourself for the holiday season
by buying presents, booking flights, accommodation, getting the car serviced, etc. If you are serious about buying property, you should also be preparing yourself because Christmas is an excellent time to buy.
BY PETER KOULIZOS
Many people are concentrating on Christmas parties, tidying up loose ends at work and going on holidays. With less people focused on and looking for property, this provides the opening for an astute investor to buy a bargain. I have prepared a seven-point check list so that you can best prepare yourself when the opportunity presents itself.
- Get your finance pre-approved – Many bank staff and mortgage brokers go on holidays at this time of year and getting finance approval can take much longer over the Christmas/New Year period. If you’re already pre-approved, you’re saving precious time.
- Do your tax – You have until early 2011 if an accountant is submitting your tax documents for you. However, if you’re seeking finance approval, the bank will want to see your most recent financial documents and these should include your tax return for the 2009-10 financial year.
- If you’re the sort of investor that likes to get building/pest inspections before you buy, find out which firms are open during the holiday season.
- Find out when your conveyancer/lawyer will be taking a break. If they’re away for a lengthy period of time, you may need to find a conveyancer/lawyer who’ll be around if you happen to buy in the holiday season.
- If you think you may need to sell a property to buy another, prepare your property now. I know it’s a chore, especially when there are so many other things going on at this busy time, but it will be well worthwhile. This time last year we had to prepare our house for sale and it assisted us to get a quick sale which meant we were able to buy our next property. A quick sale (at a fair market price) is a good sale!
- Register with realestate.com.au and domain.com.au so that as soon as relevant properties are listed on the internet, you’re alerted by email straight away. This saves time in surfing the internet and puts you ahead of most other people that are looking to buy.
- Read and research – With many people on holidays, there’s more time to read books, magazines and do research.
Happy House Hunting!
Peter Koulizos is a property educator at UniSA and TAFE and the author of The Property Professor’s Top Australian Suburbs – a guide to Australia’s top suburbs for property investors and homebuyers, available from www.businessmall.com.au
