The process of buying a house explained

Before you do anything else, figure out what the lay of the land looks like in terms of both your finances and the market. You’ll want to get an idea of what your borrowing power looks like to estimate the loan amount you’ll be applying for, and the potential size of your future home loan repayments.

You’ll also want to have a think about what type of home loan you might want, and take a look at what different types of properties are selling for in your desired suburbs. This will help you to compare your loan options with all the knowledge you need on-hand.

Before you can apply for a home loan, you’ve got to find one first – and the best way to find a home loan that works for you is comparing the options available to you.

Our home loan comparison tool can help you find out how a wide range of different home loan products stack up against each other based on things like interest rates, fees and features.

Ready to buy? Then it’s time to find your new home! You may find it easier to simply browse properties for sale online to develop a shortlist of potential candidates, or you may want to enlist the services of a buyer’s agent upfront to do the searching for you.

You may also want to think about what kind of home you’re hoping to buy. For example, do you want a townhouse or an apartment? You’ll have to consider and answer these sorts of questions before going house-hunting.

Once you’ve found one or several properties you’d like to buy, you can obtain detailed information on them via our free property reports. A property report provides valuable information, including:

• The basic details of the property such as the type of property it is, the number of rooms it has, its floor plan and area in square metres
• Its estimated value (as opposed to the listed sale price)
• A summary of the property’s sales history and sales activity
• Comparable sales in nearby areas (for the purposes of comparison).

Once you’ve found the right home for you, it’ll be time to get the ball rolling on your property purchase. If the property in question isn’t being sold via auction it’ll typically be being sold via private treaty, meaning you’ll likely need to contact the seller’s real estate agent in order to make an offer.

A conveyancer is generally employed during the process of buying a house to help with property searches, title transfers and duty payments, as well as helping you navigate any legal matters that come up throughout the process. While you don’t strictly need a conveyancer (or a solicitor with the necessary conveyancing know-how) for the process of buying a house, you may find their services useful when it comes to understanding and assessing the documentation and contracts that typically come with buying a home and to help you with the property searches you may wish to undertake as part of your due diligence.

If you’ve completed all the prior steps, you’re likely ready to apply for a home loan! The process of applying for a home loan with us is just as quick and easy as applying in-person with a lender; pre-approval and the initial application steps can usually be completed in under an hour.

The application process will typically involve the following stages:

• Putting together your documentation and submitting your home loan application with the assistance of one of our expert mortgage brokers.
• Your expert mortgage broker looking through your application and getting in touch with you to discuss some home loan options that could be suitable.
• Submitting your loan documents to the lender for processing once you and your broker have decided on the loan product you’ll be applying for.

Once your application’s been submitted, all you’ll need to do is sit back and wait to hear from us whether the lender you applied with has approved your application

As part of processing your application, the lender will typically conduct a valuation of the property you’re looking to buy to check that its value aligns with the amount you’re asking to borrow. If the lender is happy with the results of the valuation and there aren’t any issues with your application, this is when you’ll typically be given what’s called ‘unconditional approval’.

If your application is successful, your dedicated online mortgage broker will then guide you through signing the lender’s documents and the settlement process.

Once finance is approved, you and the seller can complete the contract of sale, a copy of which must be provided to your lender by either you or your conveyancer. The next step will then be the settlement period! The lender will work with your conveyancer to arrange the final settlement day, on which your representatives will typically meet or liaise with the seller and lender’s representatives to finalise the sale of the property, which will largely involve the exchange and reviewing of various documents.