You’ve found your dream home? Or are you just tired of home hunting and this seems like the best option? Since the home buying process can get long and overdrawn, it is natural to get frustrated and feel like the property in front of you is the best you’ll be able to find. At this point, it's necessary to figure out whether this is the case or if you have really found your dream home.
This checklist will help you figure out whether you have found your dream home.
Do not buy a home before checking all the boxes on this list.
▢ The House Has A Good Resale Value
You might not be buying a house with the idea of ever reselling it. It could be the home that gets passed down through generations to come. The purpose of buying a house might also be simply to flip it immediately or wait a few years and cash in the capital gains.
Either way, you must get a good idea of the price trends for the properties in the neighbourhood. If the price trends show growth for the most part of the past 5 years, the residential unit is likely to appreciate in value in the coming years.
▢ Locality Suits You
Surveying the neighbourhood is an important part of the home-buying journey. What every homebuyer needs to understand is when they leave their amazing home, they have to step out into the neighbourhood. This means anything wrong with the neighbourhood affects you as well.
Be its high crime rate, traffic, or even just poor air quality index, these things will affect your quality of life in this house and thus should be taken into account. Simply talk to neighbours or the youth in the area to get a good idea of what your time around your house would be like.
▢ You’re Not Overpaying
We understand that it might seem like the right property for you, but is the price right too? Property valuation is a tricky thing and needs to factor in a lot of variables. However, you can’t be paying Rs. 100 for a home in a locality where most properties are Rs. 60.
Thus, make sure you get the property price estimated by a third party outside of the stakeholders involved in the transaction. For homes in Mumbai, you can now check the price estimate for your property by simply putting in a few details on Clicbrics.com’s Property Valuation tool called Clicworth.
▢ Utilities And Social Infrastructure
This is an important one that gets overlooked a lot of times. As we mentioned in the first point, you will be spending a significant amount of your time around your property as well. Thus the surrounding should fit you in all manners.
Social infrastructure is the roads, shopping complexes, parks, etc. in an area. There are a few posh localities in metro cities with poorly maintained roads. Buying a property here may or may not be profitable. If there are plans by the government to improve this social infrastructure, then the property will be beneficial in the future.
▢ Calculate The Closing Costs
The closing costs are costs like stamp duty, registration charges, home loan processing charges etc. However, there are a few costs that people forget about. These are costs of necessary home buying formalities like home inspection, title searches, home appraisal fees, simple repairs required and other smaller costs.
It is very important for you to make sure that these costs are also included in your budget and do not become a financial burden once you start your home buying process.
▢ Is The Home Owner’s Association Good?
Now, this is one of the most important things that one needs to look at when buying a home. It’s also the thing that people forget and regret later if the Home Owner’s Association (HOA) is a problematic one.
While HOAs change constantly and get re-elected annually, the policies written down by HOAs rarely get refreshed. Thus, look at the HOA policies of the project you’re looking at and make sure they fit your lifestyle.