Buying a house is a hugely rewarding step to take in your life. When you buy a property, you’ll find yourself making monthly payments towards an asset in your name, as opposed to paying a landlord’s mortgage on their behalf. You will also gain the freedom to do what you like with the property. You can make it your own space, rather than having to keep it in the same state as you moved into it. Now, we are all aware that, while rewarding, buying a house is a long and arduous process. The good news is that, nowadays, there are plenty of great tools you can use to make the entire process a whole lot easier for yourself. Here are just a few you might want to try out yourself!
Mortgage Calculators
Knowing how much you’re going to spend on your property is the first step you should take when considering buying a house. All too many people guess a range they can afford and start viewing properties, then fall in love with somewhere only to find that it’s not actually within budget and would push them into debt. Avoid doing this. By knowing what Mortgage Rates you can genuinely afford from the outset, you can prevent disappointment and avoid wasting time for both yourself and your estate agents. Sure, crunching mortgage numbers is no fun. But there are ways to make this easier and more convenient for yourself. Areas to consider include how long the mortgage will last, what the interest rate will be, how much the house costs and what the monthly payments will be. This is a lot to take into consideration, so why try to calculate it the hard way when there are applications and programmes that have been built to do the maths for you? Start out by looking into any of the many free, easy-to-use mortgage calculators out there. These can be accessed by your laptop, tablet or smartphone. These will take key information about your finances, break your mortgage numbers down into tables, graphs charts and more, providing a summary showing just how much of the mortgage comes from principal and interest.
Videos or 360 Degree Tours
We all know that estate agents try to show properties in their best light. At the end of the day, it’s their job to sell a property and they often gain commission on each sale they make. They want you to buy a home with them. So, it’s not all too surprising that the photography they use on their sites really does highlight the better parts of a property. When scrolling through the pictures, ask yourself questions constantly. Do the pictures show the entire property? Are there pictures of all the bedrooms? Are there pictures of the bathrooms? Are there pictures of the hallways and other spaces within the property? What is the view from the different windows in the property like? Are there any pictures of the surrounding neighbourhood or area? Do they show pictures of the backyard? Is every room shown in its entirety or only from one angle? Make sure to take notes if pictures are the only tool that the estate agent is using. You can then ask questions or ask for more pictures of missed areas. What you should look for when searching for a house is videos of the property or 360 degree pictures. Sure, this technology may cost the estate agents more to use, but it will give you a much better view of a property than pictures taken on a smartphone or standard point and shoot camera. These options are less able to lie or cover up areas of a property that may not be up to standard. This can prevent you from wasting time travelling to view properties that may not be entirely appropriate when you actually arrive there.
Property Tax Websites
If you’re buying a property, you may have to pay property tax. It’s good to factor this into your budget. So, use local property tax websites to determine what extra charges besides the cost of the property itself you’re going to have to fork out for at some point down the line.
Of course, there are even more tools out there that could prove pretty useful in your house hunting journey. Those we’ve introduced above are just a few different options that can really help with your house hunting journey and make the entire process that little bit simpler and more manageable for you!
