are you renting or buying?

[bellagirl]

are you renting, living at home with parents or buying?

me and my dp are thinkin about buying our first home:yelclap:

only problem is, im not sure where to start looking.:eek:

if you dont mid me asking, who did you get your home loan from, how much and whats the interest like?
ta. xx :kiss:

[Briannabear]

We are currently renting.
We did own a house, but recently sold it. :smiliedance: Our home loan was with National - it was just easier to go with them because all our accounts were with them. I dont know exactly what our fees and intrest were - My DH handled all of that!

[Bel1978]

i would suggest, like the previous comment, check who you are already with as you may get special deals. We own our home and just sold our rental.

I would consider a credit Union rather then a bank if not call Aussie the Add seems to be ok..

[mrsrobo]

We are renting when this lease runs out march next year hopefully want to move into our own house

[cheezelkat]

I rent, and because DF has a seriously messed up credit record, I doubt we will ever own or own house :(

[maverick]

There are too many unknown variables to recommend an institution to you, the best anyone could recommend is that you see a mortgage broker who will hopefully line you up with the best mortgage for your situation. Someone like this would be a good start:

http://www.mortgagechoice.com.au/why_use_mortgage_choice.aspx?id=4751

But there are many mortgage brokers around.

[EskimoMumma]

i rent.


darn me and dp's credit record

[Sarie]

We rent. With DH's job there's a good chance that we will move every 3 years or so, so there is really no point us buying at this stage.
I do get sick of buying though and would love to own my own home, it's just not practicle for us at this point.

[kymmy]

Renting a 3 br house
would be lovely to buy a 5br house, just for the family

[bellagirl]

:yes: thanks for the link maverick, and everyone else!

[Kayte]

Renting !!

Hoping to build a house soon though ... maybe !:smiliedance:

[Hokey Pokey]

Renting :thumbsdown:

[Jem]

renting :yes:

[*Chels*]

We are renting,it sux.I hate property managers and paying off someone elses mortage!!
DF wants to buy by the end of next year,but with our wedding in may I think its a bit of an impossible dream!!
having a $500 a week mortage is the thing that s**ts me!!!its insane!!
so we will both have to be working to cover it,so no more babies!
I dont even know how you go about buying a house.Will just leave that to DF!!

[Mikeswifey]

My inlaws brought us our house and we have been living in it 1.5yrs - so not rent and no mortgage. We have decided we dont want to live here anymore so we just put the house on the market on monday and we are currently looking for a new home to buy.

[BlessedWithBlue]

We are currently renting and plan to get the finances in order and cars paid off before we apply for our home loan. We have 18 months left on the cars but df's dad has promised to pay out the car loans so it could be sooner. Once they are paid off we have the green light to go ahead and have our house built. :thumbsup:

[Percy]

We are renting at the moment, but we have a mortage on a house in the country, which we will be moving into in a few years.

DH had the mortage before we got together so im not sure of the details. I know he is with Westpac.

He has recently gone onto apprentice wages, and although there isnt money to throw around, we are living quite comfortably.

Good luck with your search, its really exciting!

[polony]

I'm renting and think I may never buy. Being a single mother is hard enough, but my salary when I have finished my degree won't be enough to buy anything! :(
I need to find me a rich man! Muhahaha! :devil6:

[squiglet]

You need another button, the renting and owning one:p

Thats us, our home is in another part of the country and we are renting:o

[mim]

We built :yelclap: ( I don't like old houses :o )
It was two years of blood sweat and tears but well worth it in the end. I hope I never have to rent again!

Bellagirl, good luck with buying your own house :)

Anne xxx

[LittleBoysRock]

We were renting but recently moved back in with my Mum so that we can save for a place of our own.

DH would love to buy but Perth's prices are sky rocketing at the moment!!

[mum2bubba]

ATM we're renting but we hope to buy a house in the not too distant future, we are thinking about moving to Queensland.

[SamanthaJane]

I am living with my parents at the moment.

But after the baby is born, and after christmas/new year is all over, i will be renting.

[HugsAndKisses]

we rent at the moment...its ok in some ways but i do think about all the money im practically giving away :no:
but with DP's job we cant buy for a while as he is a sub contractor and his pay is really irregular and he needs two decent tax returns before any banks will give us a loan :thumbsdown:
so yeah im enting and hoping that our own home will be a reality in the future :yes:

[OceBel]

we are renting, but looking at buying very soon:fingerscrossed:

[MrsMiggins]

I rent, and because DF has a seriously messed up credit record, I doubt we will ever own or own house :(

Are you secretly engaged to my DH?! This is our issue also!!

[TinyStar]

We are paying off 2 flats but want a house. I am sick of dealing with strata, and would love a garden for my kids.

Best bet is with a mortgage broker, as they can best advise you as to which lender will a) actually lend you the money and b) give you a good deal.

It is also a good idea to evaluate your loans every few years as the lenders change their rates and fees, so the loan that was the best when you took it out may end up not being the best 5 years down the track. Just be wary of great deals which have high fees to get out of the loan.

[SweetSerenity]

I rent but am saving to buy my own place in the next two years :D I have a good credit record so that will help also!:fingerscrossed: I cant wait!!

[MissSparkle]

We bought....well my inlaws gave us $100 000 and we borrowed the rest. We have a 3br but hopefully in 2years we'll up grade to a 4 or 5 bedroom.

[MonkeyMum05]

We are currently renting, but on the look out for a home to buy... :)

[SammieSnail]

We bought our house just before Christmas....looked at our mortgage statement last month and have only paid off around $1000 in 7 months...bloody interest :banghead:
Can't wait till we can pay double payments....atm my Grandad is helping us manage the full repayments :hugs:

[San]

Renting atm, but looking to buy within the next 6 months or so :)

[Terrible2+1cutie]

We upgraded to a bigger house in April last year and sold our old house to my mother in law. My DF has owned houses since he was 19 years old. We go through AMP, they look after all our financial affairs even though majority of our bank accounts are with the Commonwealth Bank.

Catherine

Mum to Blaze and Bailey

[missmum05]

We have just bought our first house :smiliedance: settlement is in 2 1/2 weeks so very exited to move in and have some space. We moved into a 2 brm unit nearly 3.5 years ago ( cheap rent ) to save for our house deposit and we finally made it....Yay..its a long process the whole thing paying off all debts and at the same time saving 5 % deposit but it was all worth it.:D
Our loan is with colonial and we went with Morgage choice and they found us the best loan to suit us I think our interest rate is 6.84 % pa:rolleyes:
Good Luck with everything ! :smiliedance:

[diamonds22]

There are too many unknown variables to recommend an institution to you, the best anyone could recommend is that you see a mortgage broker who will hopefully line you up with the best mortgage for your situation. Someone like this would be a good start:

http://www.mortgagechoice.com.au/why_use_mortgage_choice.aspx?id=4751

But there are many mortgage brokers around.


Yep we went through echoice home loans too..they pretty much do all the work for you and you decide once they have provided you with a selection of different options appropriate to your situation. Its also free as they get there commission from the bank that you end up getting a mortgage through...so you can't really go wrong imo.

Good post Mav

[~EmsMum~]

i live with family

[OscarTheGrouch]

We rent as we don't intend on buying a home in Sydney. We will buy when we move back to Qld.:yes:

[bellagirl]

thanks for all your ideas, i think that going through a broker sounds like the best way to go.
good luck to everyone who is planning on buying and good luck to everyone who is already buying, hopefully i will get a good deal.:fingerscrossed:

[FourAngelKisses]

I don't have time to read 4 pages of replies, so sorry if this has been said already.


DH and I started looking into buying a house when I was about 6wks pregnant with Matthew. Everyone told us to try a broker, so we did. They said they would lend us $175000 (well...one of the banks in their computer system said that), but we only wanted to borrow $150 000. We had $13000 deposit saved which was more than enough.
Anyway, fast forward 3 days.....we get s phone call saying that because of the town we live in, we could only borrow $100 000. Which was no good for us as the cheapest place in town was $150 000. So we told them to jam it.

When Matthew was 4mths old, we decided to try again. We went straight to the Commonwealth bank, they said yep, no probs. We could borrow up to $200 000. :smiliedance: :smiliedance: So we started looking for a place and found this one for $125 500, we offerred $116500 (started at 104000, but a counter bid [which we think was fake] was put in on the same day) and they accepted it.

We locked our interest rate in for 4yrs, I think it is 7.1%. Our house isn't the best looking, but with a coat of paint and new carpet, it will look brand new. We are putting in a colourbond fence in a few weeks which will make a ton of difference.

My advice.....don't start off big. Start of small and cheap, sell it in a couple of years and work your way up. Also find out if you can afford repayments if interest rates suddenly jump up to say 10%. And pay off more if you can. our mortgage is only $180 a week, but we are paying $240 and we have already cut 18yrs off the loan in 19mths.

[GirlGerms]

We went with a broker with all three of our mortgages. All were great bar one. That said, I'm still glad we did because it takes a lot of work out of it. Also, every time you lodge an application for a home loan, it appears on your credit record. At least a mortgage broker can give you an idea of how much can borrow and who will lend it to you.

Make sure you get a simple home loan with simple features. Ie. if you make extra repayments, it's nice to be able to access this further down the track in emergencies. Also, it's nice to be able to make all the extra repayments you like, which some lenders won't let you do (apparently).

We've had mortgages with Bank of Adelaide (through Nationalcorp Home Loans - who were awesome), Suncorp (no comment) and now we are with BankWest (who have been great).

We bought a brand new house at the beginning of 2005. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone as just because being a new house does not necessarily mean it's any good. We were in a new housing development (Springfield Lakes) and it took us about a week before we realised we'd made a big mistake. The house was poorly built and little things were popping up here and there.

It's pretty in [some parts of] Springfield, but I found that most people didn't look after their gardens (apparently this is common in new estates). Also, although new houses are nice, once they're about 5 years old, they just don't do anything for me. That had me a bit worried.

We sold our house at the end of last year and bought an old house within 8km of Brisbane and we're extremely glad we did. We spend our weekends renovating and it's really rewarding. The house is smaller (2.5 bedroom) but we have plans for a renovation which will make it 3 a bedroomer, with 2 bathrooms.

Personally, I'll never make the same mistake again and I'll always buy on land value (the value of our land is $255,000 as opposed to a measly $110,000 in Springfield Lakes).

That's just my opinion - everyone has their own :ecomcity:

[candlelover]

renting at the moment but i hope to be in my own home next year

[onabreak]

We bought our house just before Christmas....looked at our mortgage statement last month and have only paid off around $1000 in 7 months...bloody interest :banghead:
Can't wait till we can pay double payments....atm my Grandad is helping us manage the full repayments :hugs:

We got our statement the other day regarding our mortgage and we bought just before Chrismas aswell and we are in the same boat. We have been paying $800 a week for our mortgage and we have only paid of $1500. Interest sucks big time.

Plus when we bought our house we got ripped off big time. Our finance company left everything to the last minute so we got the worst interest rate going. The finance company starts with a W and ends in D. Hope you can work that out, I would never ever recommend them to any one. The lady that was doing everything for us was lazy and could not be bothered and we nearly lost the house of our dreams because of her.

We are looking at refinancing in the new financial year, but becuase of this crappy home loan we are tied down to it will cost us $12,000 to get out of it. But hopefully with refinancing our house with a much better interest rate we are looking at being able to pay our house off in 5 years!!

Best thing to do is ring around and get us much info as you can, I wish we did.

[FourAngelKisses]

We borrowed $104 000 and 19mths later we now owe $98500, so we have cut ours down dramatically just by paying an extra $40-50 a week.

[bellagirl]

im surprised to see that as many people that are buying, is the same as renting.
hopefully i dont get screwed over.:shame:

[JorBai]

We rent!

DH and I went through a faze of wanting to buy and also wanting to build a house but we changed our mind when they told us the repayments were in excess of $500 a week. Now luckily with DH on a good wage we could probably manage but we would not have an enjoyable lifestyle. We enjoy going out for dinner and nights out too but if we buy that would stop and we also would not be able to have more babies.

We have decided that at the moment our lifestyle and having a family means more to us than owning a home and living on staples like bread and water.

I am happy with our townhouse that we rent, our landlord lets us do the things we want to do and it costs us 1/2 of what a mortgage would. And we dont have a water bill, rates bill or general house maintenance costs.

As much as I would love to own my own home I am happy the way things are at the moment.

[bellagirl]

gee i envy all you lucky ones that have had there house bought for them, lucky things!:yes: lol

[FourAngelKisses]

gee i envy all you lucky ones that have had there house bought for them, lucky things!:yes: lol

I agree.....though I tend to think you appreciate it more when you save for it yourself and pay your own mortgage.

[pookiesossige]

I agree also.. but let me put it like this: two years ago my parents bought DH and I a fridge and we could finally do away with the crappy old bar one. They said they will do the same for my little sis. That's a pretty generous gift and when I thanked them they said the same had been done for them when they got married, and they light-heartedly said that they would love to see us do the same for our children when they are starting out... And we will, what a great idea. Make a new fam. tradition. BUT .... Imagine if they had brought us a house!! :eek: OMG the responsibility of having to do the same for my children! I would have to start saving big time now and my oldest is only 2!!
How do people who have had a house paid for by their folks feel about having something so big given to them by their parents? Are they ok with that? We were helped out with our deposit (they gave us the final 3k we needed) and that's enough for me to feel a tad dissappointed that we couldn't do it on our own.

[twolittlegirls]

We have had our house since December 2000. The bank still owns half of it!! We are very lucky because my husband purchased the house before the market went up. We paid $66000 (we have put more money on our loan for reno's and our car) and now the house would be worth $190000. We also live in a country town so that probably helps with the prices of houses!

Definatly love having my own home. We love doing things around the house. It's very rewarding knowing that all the hard work that we have put into the house will eventually pay off!

One big tip for everyone that we found out; pay your home loan weekly! We found this out and have knocked a few years off our loan. My husband gets paid monthly but we still pay it weekly.

[anna's mum]

We just bought our first house & haven't even moved in yet as there is a tenant there for the next six weeks. We got a 100% deposit through a broker & are looking at paying $600/week :eek: My main incentive was my parents - who have owned before but are now in their fifties, renting, and with no option to buy ... I would rather live on bread & water now than in retirement!
Don't feel too back about accepting gifts from your parents, you lucky ones who have had houses bought for you! Just think of the wrinkles & grey hairs you are saving by not having any financial stress! Swap?!:wave:

[Tam-I-Am]

We're buying our own home, plus an investment property.

We used Aussie Mortgage Brokers to find our deal. They're pretty darn good. And they don't get commissions from banks, not even Aussie, to recommend one mortgage over another like some other brokers do - so they have no vested interest in you getting one mortgage over another, they'll make sure you get the best one for YOU.

They have a website (http://www.eaussie.com.au/). Have a look.

[IAdoreYou]

We are buying and have big plans to own this home by 45! We bought before the rise in 2000 and now that we are living on one wage we will welcome a 2nd pay packet later more wisely and reach our goal quite easily. We do need to renovate 1st though. Until then we are bringing up kids and letting the carpet cracks fill up with cupcake crumble ;)

You have heaps of great advice. goodluck!!!!

[Mahjong]

Currently renting, but seriously looking into buying at the moment.