So if twenty twenty five is your year to purchase a property in New South Wales, whether you're a first homeowner or you've owned property before, then this podcast is probably for you if you are a little bit rusty. So depending on who you talk to, some people will say the conveyancing process like buying and selling property is easy. Some will say it's hard. For me, it's easy. I've been in this world for like probably nearly twenty years now and it is a process that's reasonably pretty well straightforward so long as you follow some basic advice. So there are many different components that we could break this podcast up into. I'm going to give three tips today to keep it super basic if you are looking at purchasing your first home or whether it's been a while in between purchases so you can reduce any stress that may come upon you by not knowing what the process is. And depending on when you last purchased, how conveyancing works in New South Wales has also changed. It's also now online. Back in the day when I first started, we used to have to get physical checks and run around between offices and with paperwork galore to make sure that the property settlement went through. Now it's all done on a platform called PEXA. It is probably all but compulsory in all states in australia now I would be surprised if I mean there's some circumstances where a conveyance needs to be paper um you that would be very far and few between if it still had to be a paper settlement. I haven't had to physically do a paper settlement in New South Wales since I think, like, I think it was a year I went out on my own. Queensland, we did. There's still some paper settlements up there, but they're largely through PEXA as well. And the information I give in this podcast can be used for other states. The terminology that I'm using is going to be New South Wales-based because that is what I am used to, but the process is still similar. So the first three tips I'm going to give you will educate you so that process is just more smooth when that time comes. So the first thing I would suggest you do is go and get pre-approval. So you will go to a mortgage broker like my mortgage working business, Confetti Finance. Might as well throw a plug in there for that. The details can be found below if you want to reach out to us. or a bank or obviously any other mortgage broker as well. So what that pre-approval process is going to do is that the bank, the broker will ask for paperwork. So that paperwork is going to vary from person to person. However, it is likely you're going to have to produce your ID, for example, so driver's license, passport. Bank statements, pay slips, if you're self-employed, there could be extra documents that may be required, perhaps from your accountant. it's going to be reasonably similar. But what that pre-approval is going to do is that that broker is going to go through your documents and go, right, you want to buy a house, you have these concessions available to you. If there are any available to you, your stamp duty will be this. If you need to pay stamp duty, they generally take into account disbursements. So like council rates, water rates, bank fees, legal fees and things like that. And then they'll give you a figure. And that figure is how much you can go shopping for. So you don't want to commit to a purchase and find out that you can't get the loan for that purchase because you can't afford it. So pre-approval is so important to get so you know how much money you can go to. So if you want a five hundred thousand dollar house and you can only lucky if you get a house for five hundred thousand dollars these days but say you want a five hundred thousand dollar house but you can only get a loan for two hundred thousand it's probably not going to work and you don't want to get your hopes up on a property if you can't afford it. The benefit of also getting pre-approval and seeing a broker or a bank before you go shopping is sometimes there are things that need to be cleared up. So if you have had a debt in the past, that may have to be cleaned up before you can go shopping. You might have started a new job and you have to wait a further three months for example, of pay slips before you can get a loan. So there will be circumstances where maybe something has to be done before you get pre-approval, like cleaning something up, waiting for X amount of time in employment. self-employment sometimes can be two years so just depending on what you're after different banks have all different sorts of requirements as well so bear that in mind but your first step would definitely be to go see a mortgage broker or a bank to work out how much money you have to play with and they will get you a pre-approval that generally lasts three months ish um and then that pre-approval will expire you can go again you may have found a house in that time whatever that is but that will be the amount of money that you can go play with so please make sure you go see a bank or a broker like confetti finance another shameless plug there to make sure that you will have no issues when you go to um get a loan sometimes you'll have family members help you out as well so there could be like a guarantor involved so parents might put up equity in their property to help you. So that's helpful to know at the start as well, because sometimes It'll, you know, we'll be getting properties found and we're trying to get finance and then there's a guarantor. The parents are like, no, no, no, we paid our loan out ten years ago but there's still a mortgage there. But even though there's no loan, I mean, there's still a mortgage and that mortgage has to be discharged. Like it's just extra stress that you don't need. So that is another benefit as well. It actually happens pretty common. It's happened, well, past few months it's definitely happened for us where there's been a guarantor. Parents are going guarantor for their kids. Parents are like, there is no debt on this property. Title search, hey, might be no debt, but there is a discharge of mortgage here that we have to deal with. That can take like a couple of weeks to a month. So that's going to delay your finance process. And that could mean that you miss out on a house because we still don't have finance because of something over here. So definitely, definitely remember, recommend that you go see a bank. or a broker to get pre-approval to make sure that there are no skeletons in the closet and to make sure that you know how much money that you can go play with. Second is I'd probably make yourself familiar with the real estate in the area where you want to purchase. So I subscribe to Domain. You have realestate.com as well. Just see what prices things are going for. Sometimes the agents will have their like off market sales, or they may have a property coming up that is not quite ready to go yet, but it may be suitable to you. And they also had the email database. So you might get emails sent in that database that might not hit domain as well. So I'd probably make yourself familiar with the agents in your area saying, hey, I'm looking at buying a house. This is what my limit is. I already have pre-approval. Straight away, the agent's gonna go, yay, you know what you're doing. You already have pre-approval. you know how much money you can spend it might be I want a unit I want a three bedroom house i whatever it may be. And you can get on the agent's mailing list to see what properties are coming up. And it just gives you a bit of a feel as to the type of properties that are coming up and the expectation in relation to sale price or purchase price. So you may be in an area, so Sydney is you know obviously very common you might not be able to afford a property in sydney but you might be able to afford a property in the central coast for example because that price point is going to be different so um bear that in mind as well so the third thing I would suggest is align yourself with a conveyancer or a lawyer so once again shameless plug All Star Conveyancing for Queensland, Act for Legal Conveyancing for New South Wales Conveyancing and we can help you out in other areas of Australia as well but having that lawyer or conveyancer sitting there it's like hey letting you know we've got pre-approval we're going house hunting heads up something could come through or they're good just to run questions through as well so I know that we have a first-time owners buyers course which is sitting there and I'll probably need to to relaunch that but that goes through pretty well all the conveyancing process most of the time it's similar sometimes it changes um to agent agent to area to you have to exchange with a cooling off period whatever that might be but whatever those terms are if you have that conveyance or solicitor sitting there it's like hey they want to exchange with a five-day cooling off period you know can I do that is that enough time can you help me out with the pest and field whatever it might be so when you're negotiating it will be wise and probably helpful to call your conveyancer or lawyer just have a chat with them before you know contracts are assigned and exchanged because sometimes that happens before it hits our desk because you know there's ten people after a property, it's usually first in best dressed and that can happen as well. If the market's cooling a little bit, you probably have a little bit more time, but sometimes properties are so hot to trot that you may have to change what the normal is a little bit to get the property to then have to do the other things that should have possibly have been done at the start but having that pre-approval is going to put you bounds ahead of people that have not even gone down that path yet so um hopefully that helps I said I there's whole other topics that I can bring up but I'll break that down into a different podcast just so it's not overwhelming this is something that I can just rattle off um freely but for somebody who's not familiar with it I really just wanted to break it down so there are little takeaways that you can have So just to recap, the first thing I would do is hook yourself up with a mortgage broker or a bank to get pre-approval to make sure that there are no skeletons in your closet and you know how much money you can go spend on a house. Second, I would contact the real estate agents in the area you're looking at buying to get on their mailing list. I would subscribe to realestate.com .com or domain. They're generally similar. I do find those sometimes properties are on one and not on another. I personally just prefer domain. I don't know why I just do, but if you're on the real estate agents list, you're going to be getting those properties anyway. So that would be beneficial just so the real estate agent knows that you're hunting and let them know what you're hunting. and you can be a forefront of their mind, perhaps ahead of some random who doesn't have finance and that agent's never heard of before. So that can come in handy. Third, I just put up way too many fingers then. Third is align yourself with a lawyer or a conveyancer. So when that time comes, if something has to be, you know, sometimes you might have time to get your pest build finance all sorted. Sometimes you have to exchange a contract and then do your pest build finance. So sometimes things are a little bit complicated. over lappy it's still standard but it might be a little bit different to what you're expecting so if you have that conveyance or that lawyer on hand it's like hey we found this property they want to do this is that normal yes no we can negotiate and do whatever we want to do from that so those are the three tips I would definitely start with I'll do a podcast on what can happen on the balance of a purchase contract. As I said, that process is pretty similar throughout the rest of Australia. I would definitely recommend that you get that pre-approval. I would definitely be recommending that you just let the agents know in the area that you're buying that you're after something and let them know what you're after and I would definitely be aligning yourself with a conveyancer or a lawyer in case something needs to happen in those negotiations. So conveyancing is a state-based thing, it's all done a little bit different but the first three parts of what I've just discussed would be applicable um australia-wide so hopefully you found that really helpful if you know somebody that's looking at purchasing a house please share this podcast with them I'm sure they will find it really beneficial and I as I said I'll do a podcast on the remaining of the um the the purchasing process um in a couple of different podcasts so it can just um just be broken up for you guys so it's less overwhelming of course if you have any questions uh please reach out and we can answer them otherwise thank you for joining me and have a wonderful day
