Buying a house in Australia is a fulfilling experience weather it is for own residence or for investment. The process of buying houses may involve different modes of purchase. The most common modes in which people buy houses are at open auction or through the private treaty.
Offer & Acceptance
Once you found the right property the next best thing is to make an offer, generally being the lower price in the market. If the offer is accepted you will be asked to pay a deposit with the seller. However, this doesn’t mean that the deal is over. It basically explains how serious the interested parties are in buying houses in Australia. If someone else makes a better offer, then the seller should inform the buyer and has to refund the deposit. If your offer is accepted by the buyer the next step is to exchange the contract. This contract will be legally binding on both parties.
Cooling Off – Period
A cooling off period is the period of five days when the offer and acceptance is made against a property decision between the buyer & seller in the process of buying houses in Australia. If the buyer changes his decision and doesn’t want to buy the house, he should properly communicate this to the seller before the period ends to cancel the contract, by writing a letter to the seller. There will be a nominal fee that will be deducted from the deposit and the balance will be refunded.
Settlement of Property
The final important step in buying houses in Australia is the settlement. Settlement normally happens between 30-90 days from the day of acceptance of the agreement. The settlement period could be amended if needed, on the mutual agreement of the buyer and seller.
Buying Houses in Australia in Auctions
A popular mode of buying houses in Australia is bidding for the houses in the open auction. In general the property or house is sold to the highest bidder in the auction. In principle, the buyer is required to keep a deposit of 10% of the reserved price of the property and complete the settlement in 30 days and the cooling off period is just 2 days in the open auction.
In a nutshell, following are the 9 steps which are widely used as the guidelines for buying houses in Australia.
- Getting a conditional loan approval from the banks or the mortgage institutions for the amount within the price range of your choice
- Searching for the house and short list a few
- Inspecting the short listed properties and make a final selection
- Getting the contract of the sale of house you’re interested in purchasing
- Make an offer to the house through the private treaty
- Organizing the formal financial approval, inspection of properties & searches
- Bidding at auction for the property
- Signing the loan, letter of offer & mortgage documents
- Settlement of Property through the conveyancer
These 9 steps can serve as the user guide/manual to anyone in the process of buying
houses in Australia.