Your first home may not be your dream home, but it could be an affordable first step on the ‘property ladder’.

There’s no point owning your own home if you can’t keep up with the mortgage repayments. Sometimes ‘the worst house in the best street’ is the way to go – particularly if you are good at DIY!

A few tips before you get started on your journey to home ownership:

Know how much you can afford:

There is no point looking at houses that maybe above what banks would be prepared to lend you only to have your hopes dashed.

Get Pre-Approved:

Pre-approval will help you to understand how much you can expect to borrow from your lender. Knowing your spending range can help to narrow your home search to properties within your price range. It can also give sellers a little more confidence in your seriousness when making an offer.

Prioritse your Wants and Needs:

Working within a budget, sometimes you have to make some compromises. Knowing what you really need can help narrow your home search options and also make decisions easier when it comes to making an offer. Create a checklist of your needs and wants. Don’t forget to include things that aren’t actually a part of the house, but could be just as important, such as the neighborhood, work commute, schools, etc

Use the Internet:

There are some great sites that can help with your search for a great property; Trademe.co.nz realestate.co.nz to name a couple also you could download their apps to your smartphones so you get all you need on the go!

The bottom line is buying your first home can be an exhilarating experience, provided you do some research, stay within a comfortable budget and work with reputable professionals who will guide you through the process.

Good luck!

I have to say it is a great app, it is GPS enabled so you can view all the properties for sale or rent in and around your area.

You can get directions to the Open Homes you intend on going to, take a few photos once you are there and write some notes on the property and each room. Because as we all know once you have gone to 3 or 4 Open Homes you get home and try to remember which property had what and wind up viewing the a property for a second time only to realise that it wasn’t the property you had in mind.

It even has a mortgage calculator so you can find out what the repayments might be.

Download this great app FREE!

Realestate.co.nz CEO Alister Helm said the more muted numbers for April also put splashed cold water on the contention that the New Zealand housing market was headed back into bubble territory. He said while property sales were strong for the latest month’s data, for March they did not show a seasonally adjusted increase.

“This indicates that the  market would appear not to be diving headlong into a property bubble, but rather is seeing a steady turnover and pragmatic buying and selling in the main.”

Despite an anticipated slow down over the next three months, realestate.co.nz is forecasting an increase in asking prices as “demand flows through to vendor expectations.” “Clearly there are pockets of the market where there is not quite this degree of balance.”

The inventory of unsold homes, which saw a four year low in March, eased slightly in April.

If you watch Master Chef New Zealand you may know that we had a contestant from little old Ashburton on there. Chantelle O’Brien owner of Twelve Wine Lounge & Tapas Bar on Tancred St.

Unfortunately though on Tuesday night, her journey ended. In the 3 seasons that the show has been running she is the first Mid-Cantabrian to make it this far.

Well done for making it to the top 8 on Master Chef New Zealand Chantelle.

Any feedback would be appreciated. (be kind )

The other market commentator Quotable Value measures prices as an average over three months. It put the district’s property market in a better light, giving a three-month average sale price of $268,390 which was a 2.3per cent growth over July’s average.

To say that it is a buyers or sellers market at the moment who can be really sure, however, what I do know is that the houses on the market that are well presented and priced accordingly are flying of the proverbial shelf. We have sellers that are getting close or better than what they expected for their properties and the buyers are happy with their purchasers. So to me it is currently a WIN WIN market for seller and buyer.

Read my It Pays to “Think Forward” when Buying

Using the data he has gathered from his website for July he paints excellent picture of the current market.

He has noted that the number of new listings on the site is down along with the overall listing numbers on the site.

“The level of new listings coming onto the market in July fell again to 8,966. This represented a 15% year-on-year decline but a marginal 1% seasonally adjusted rise from June”.

At the same time interest from buyers is up and time to sell is shortening, all signs of a developing sellers market. what is interesting and Alistair mentions in his clip is how although it is a sellers market the overall asking prices have edged down not up as you might expect in a sellers market, he suspects the lower asking prices and low interest rates are what might be driving this increased activity.

You can view the full report for July here

or download the printable version here