Although buying a personal lived-in property comes with a lot of advantages, the idea is not for everyone. Therefore, before deciding to buy your own home, it’s important to first consider the benefits of doing so as against its disadvantages.

Benefits to Buying a Property

• Owning a home gives you full control to adjust the structure and design to your taste.
• The potential gain of the property’s value, either through market conditions or improvements made to it, belongs to you.
• Higher property value creates equity for you (the property value less the debt you owe) and this gives you the opportunity to trade up in your next move.
• You will pay lower monthly mortgage repayments on private property compared to what you will pay on rented property.
• You will own the property outright once you complete your monthly mortgage payments.
• Being an outright property owner means lesser living costs for you.
• Some schemes allow you to release equity from your home to fund your retirement plan.
• Your family can inherit your property.

Disadvantages of Buying a Property

• You’re required to have a deposit of at least 5% of the purchase price before you can buy a property.
• There are other buying costs which may include, but not limited to the following:
  • Mortgage application fees
  • Legal costs from your solicitor
  • Stamp duty
  • Property surveys

• Any money spent during the purchase process may be lost if something stops you from buying the property.
• It is your responsibility to maintain a property you own.
• There is no guarantee that the value of your property will increase.
• You may find it difficult to move if you need to sell your current home and purchase a new one.
• You may need to pay additional service charge costs if you buy a leasehold property.

Steps to Buying a Property

After going through the pros and cons of buying a property and you’ve decided to buy one, here is a guide on how to go through the various options available. Below is a simple timeline of what you need to do to buy your dream property:

• First, decide on the type of property you want to buy.
• Calculate how much money you will be able to spend by getting a mortgage agreement in principle.
• Start viewings on available properties to find the right one.
• Engage solicitor to complete the legal work.
• Submit offers on your choice of property to initiate your commitment.
• Submit your mortgage application.
• Instruct your solicitor to work through the conveyancing.
• Organise a survey to ascertain the condition of the property.
• Wait until your confirmed mortgage offer
• Take your time to review the report from your solicitor about the property.
• Send the deposit funds to the solicitor.
• Exchange contracts which bind both parties and set the completion date.
• Process is completed and the property is now yours.