I’ve decided to buy a property, now what’s my first step?
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In this article I’m going to talk about the first step you need to take once you’ve decided that you want to buy either an investment property or your own home.
The First Step: Go And See Your Bank
The first step that I recommend people take is to go and see your bank. That’s right.
Your bank, the one that you’re dealing with at the moment. What we want to do is go to our bank and find out a few details about how much we can barrow and what sort of deposit we need.
The reason that I recommend you go to a bank over a mortgage broker is I’ve just found it to be so much easier to organize a meeting with your bank than it is to organize a meeting with a mortgage broker.
Now, mortgage brokers look at lots of different lenders and at the end of the day I would probably go through a mortgage broker to get your loan.
It’s Such An Easy Process
But for the first step where you just want to find out some basic information, your bank is so much easier because all you have to do is walk in, press the inquiries button or go up to the teller and say, “I’d like to inquire about a home loan.”
You can be straight up, you can be honest with them, you can say, “Look, I’ve decided I want to buy an investment property. I don’t quite have my deposit yet but I do my banking with you guys. Can you please talk me through it so that when I am ready I know what I need and I can come in and potentially get a loan with you guys.”
The good thing about your bank is that firstly, you’re already dealing with them so getting free information out of them is easy because you are already one of their customers. You’re not wasting this time because they want to keep you as a customer and you’re helping them do that.
I find it so much easier emotionally to go in to a bank and ask for help than to call a mortgage broker I don’t know.
Why Not See A Mortgage Broker As Your First Step Towards Buying A Property?
With a mortgage broker they offer a free service but they only make money when you actually signup for a loan.
If I got a mortgage broker and I say, “Look, I want to buy a house. I’m not quite ready yet or don’t have the deposit,” to them they don’t really want to deal with you because you’re not ready to buy yet.
They want to deal with people who are ready to buy, ready close, who need a loan and they can quickly sign it off and get their commission payment. With the banks they take a longer term approach to it so it’s so much easier to get information out of them.
That’s the first step that I recommend you take once you’ve decided to buy either an investment property or your own home.
Go into your bank, ask to talk to someone about a potential home loan.
In a coming article, I’m going to talk about some of the questions that I want you to ask when you go into that meeting with your bank and I’m also going to provide a checklist that you can print off and take them with as well.