First time buyer(s) looking for advice

Hi all

I'm a 33 year old Irish national and my wife is a 28 year old Australia citizen. We moved back permanently to Australia earlier this month. I have a permanent visa through her sponsoring me.

We are living in Brisbane. Both have jobs secured to start in the new year. Me earning circa $60k per annum and her $50k. We have modest savings of approx $25k. We hope to have circa $60K saved by the end of next year (more if possible) to use as a deposit on our first home.

We have no set idea where we want to live but somewhere in the outer suburbs with good transport links to the city for work. Currently living in Springfield Lakes which is a lovely area, but a little far out - 45 mins on the train to Central.

We want to start a family sometime in 2017 and would love to be in our own home before then.

I ave no credit history in Australia, good or bad, my wife has never defaulted on a debt has has Australian credit cards as well as previously having phone contracts etc.

Will a bank be willing to offer us a mortgage based on the above?

Advice on suburbs to look at? We like the idea of "home and land" new home packages but not sure if this is the best route to go down?

If we have a deposit of $60K, how much could we expect a bank to lend us for a mortgage?

I have a million more questions but I'll leave it at that for now!

Thanks for reading

 

Welcome Tony. I'm sure you'll get a lot of messages here but I would think your first step is speaking to a mortgage broker who will look into your situation and to provide appropriate advice on borrowing capacity, structure etc. I think it's really a case by case basis, and that's when you know whether you qualify for a loan and how much.

The brokers here will no doubt need more details from you as discussion progresses. Welcome again!

 

Welcome @Tony Flynn. Larry is right, having a chat with a broker (there's plenty of us on Property Chat) in a bit more detail would be helpful as there's lots of other factors that will impact your borrowing capacity but as a ballpark, $60k will probably get you into a property worth $350-$400k (some of your saving will need to go towards stamp duty, solicitor fees and other purchase costs, not just the deposit).

Were your first property purchase an investment, rather than a home to live in, you would be able to borrow more on the same income as banks don't like debt that doesn't produce income (e.g. debt for the house you live in).

Food for thought.

As for where and what to buy, that'll come down to things like:

1) Is this purely an emotional, lifestyle choice or;
2) Is there some wealth creation strategy behind the decision too?

 

Hiya

Welcome aboard.

I haven't crunched the numbers - but wanted to mention that if you're planning on having kids in the near future then it's important to have a strategy in place for meeting your liabilities whilst one of you takes time off.

While you may be able to get $400k from a bank now - you might struggle meeting that liability on one income of circa $60k when you've got another mouth to feed.

Cheers

Jamie

 

@Jamie Moore has brought up an excellent point there, what if your wife takes time off when she has the baby, youvd got a mortgage to pay and then u lose or job or get sick ot whatever? Flying a bit close to the sun imo, nothing wrong with doing that if it was just u or just the 2 of u but with plans for a baby soon you need to be making the right decisions financially

Is she originally from brisbane? If not i think a month in is far too early to be considering a PPOR purchase, you wouldnt have seen or experienced enough of the city to decide where youd want to live.

House and land packages in fringe locations are more often then not duds finacially and u dont want to be too far out, you could end up being offered a job on the other side of brisbane and spending 2 hours a day just commuting to and from work.

Thats time you could be spending with your wife and baby

 

Hi all

Thanks for responses so far.

Some valid points have been raised.

To be honest we're not going to be in a position to move on anything until early 2017 so that gives us time to get a good feel for Brisbane - I've lived here for 2 years previously, my wife is originally from Ballina NSW.

That is actually another option we were thinking about - buying an older home in Ballina and renovating it while we live in it. Has anyone any words on wisdom on that approach?

Re having a baby and the added costs/lower income that brings - again valid points. I guess we want to own our home and be paying towards something instead of renting. We also want to start a family. It will be difficult, but millions of other people do it, we'll just have to make it work.

Is the Australian market set to go into a depression in the near future? I've been reading some stuff online that alludes to that.

Tony

 

Again, youre taking a scattergun approach. Please note this is not criticism, just feedback abd plenty of people do it too.

Eg how do you go from a house and land package in brisbame fringe to and old house to live in and reno in ballina?

Work out what it is that youre trying to achieve, list it out in order of priority. Then at least you have some reference point or a guide in terms of where you shoild look and what kind of properties.

Are both your jobs pretty stable and could u both get new jobs relatively easily if there was the need to?

 

Very good point re scattergun approach!

We're only here two weeks but I'm the type of person who gets anxious if I don't have a plan in place! I want to get as much information together as possible and I'm sure you can tell from my questions I'm very inexperienced in the property market.

Is there any threads of subforums here or elsewhere that you'd advise I read to educate myself more?