If I were you, I would get a thorough building inspection done, and if it turns out to be structually sound, and the wiring and everything is ok, I’d go for it. I suppose it depends on what your strategy is though … are you in it for the +CF or CG? Trust your gut instinct (after doing proper due diligence, of course).

p.s … total newbie here, so I’m throwing in a grain of salt with this post

Kez

Hey jazpo

Just a beginner myself, but I had a thought. Couldn’t you look for a cheaper area to buy, somewhere a bit regional maybe, but which shows a reasonable growth, and only draw $100,000 from your offset account? That way, you’re allowing a margin for things to go wrong until you can get work again. Just a thought.

The options with investing seem to almost endless, and my head is spinning with a lot of it, but it’s very exciting all the same. Good luck with it.

Kez

Kez

<<< puttin’ my hand up for the chat room and the little abc button!![wideeyed]

Kez

Some of the extra things I was asked for at different times, after I had already submitted everything that had been requested were:

*a letter from my credit union to say that my visa was a debit card only, even though I supplied 12 months worth of statements which clearly showed there was no overdraft on the card

*a medicare card to prove that I had no dependants, which I could not supply as I am in the defence force and don’t have a medicare card. I had to go to work and get them to find something that stated my status and MWOD (Member WithOut Dependants), and explained what that meant.

*a ‘letter of employment’, even though they already had a letter describing me as MWOD.

I don’t know if it was the broker or the lender who decided to draw the process out and not tell me everthing I needed to get together for them right from start. It was incredibly frustrating though, and each time I asked the broker if anything else would be needed, and he would say that was everything now.

Something really ridiculous was a fax I received from the lender, with the subject line of “Notice of Final Approval”. The special conditions were that the mortgage insurers required, prior to instructing solicitors to prepare documents, a signed contract of sale for purchase of property, to be submitted with my FHOG application. At the bottom of the fax though, they said that this is not a formal offer, and that I should not sign any contract until their solicitors had sent the unconditional approval documents to my solicitor.

So, on the one hand, they would not draw up the documents until I had signed the contract, and on the other hand, they were saying not to sign the contract until I had received the documents.

The broker told me to just sign the document with any old date, that it didn’t matter. When I was unsure about doing that with a legal document, he scoffed, and said something to the effect of “Surely you’re not going to throw this all away because of some silly date on a piece of paper?”. Still feeling unsure, I rang the office of state revenue and found out that they did require a copy of a legally exchanged contract, and not just a copy of the contract signed with any old date, as the broker had suggested. So that was when I went to my solicitor, and he added the ‘subject to finance’ clause to the contract and we exchanged.

I really think that if the broker had been worth the fee I paid(which above mentioned fax said was not payable), he would have done a lot more to smooth the way for me, and would certainly not have tried to get me to falsify documents.

I know brokers are supposed to make life easier, and have access to more resources than me, but I will be extremely cagey about ever using one again.

Kez

Brahms

I would most definitely have changed brokers if there had been time. I actually contacted a few, some who said they couldn’t help with 100% finance, and others who were too busy to help in the time frame I needed. I even considered scrapping the idea of buying the unit completely at one stage. Rang everyone and cancelled everything, and started looking for another rental (the owners of my then rental were wanting to move in), even though I would have lost a fair bit in non-refundable fees a stuff. The broker’s boss and the boss at the finance company rang and assured me again and again that my finace was approved, and I had nothing to worry about. I had already heard that so many times it wasn’t funny. My finance took over 2 months from being conditionally approved to full approval, with me having to jump through the most horrendous hoops. In the end, I decided to continue with the purchase, as rentals were really thin on the ground, and I was reluctant to lose the money I had already spent.

The broker had said I did not pay his fee, that the finance company paid it. When my loan contract finanlly got to me, there was a fee for “morgage originators fee”. When I rang up and query it, I was told that yes, it was the broker’s commission, but that a clerical error had occurred on my documents, and it should have been written down as an establishment fee. I was furious that I was being slugged directly for something I had been told I would not have to pay, but couldn’t see any way out of it by that time. I had been talked into signing the contract with a 14 day subject to finance clause. The thirteenth day of that clause was the day I spat the dummy and told them all to shove it. I had already extended the date for vacating the rental for as long as I could.

I tried to attach part of an email I sent to the finance provider, which outlines some of the problems I encountered, but couldn’t work out how[blink].

I guess all’s well that ends well, but the amount of angst I went through with these people was almost enough to put me off ever trying for property finance again. (note that I said almost [wink4])

Kez