Nicholas Humphrey
Published 2003
Softcover 252 pages
AUD$24.95
ISBN: 43002163

The prospect of buying a house or property is often as daunting as it is exciting, especially when subject to today's environment of economic and interest rate volatility. The Penguin Home Buyer's Guide provides a comprehensive step-by-step guide to buying property on the Australia wide market, taking into account both the intricacies of acquiring and servicing the house itself, and the planning and financial considerations required in making the investment a successful one.

Whilst the guide does not seek to provide a specific legal prospectus, the advisory content runs full circle, in that it covers pre purchase considerations, ownership issues, through to sale of the property. The philosophy of the guide is that the process of buying a home or investment property is highly strategic, and so the content is presented as such. The result is that prospective buyers have a structured and systematic method by which to consider the viability of a potential investment. The content itself covers preliminary risk analysis, finding properties, the methods and course of buying, the extension alternative, renovation, contracts, and selling.

Needless to say, all potential investors initially ask themselves how much will a satisfactory property cost and can I afford it? All too quickly this seemingly straightforward question becomes a baffling uncertainty, a distraction from the confident approach to finding the perfect property. The book alleviates the complexity of this hurdle by providing a complete package of financial management plans pertaining to the relative costs of homes, mortgage optimization, GST, stamp duty, negative gearing, calculation of buying power, deposits, and transaction costs. The figures are listed by state, providing a practical sense of regional market variation. This book will be a valuable resource to either the novice or the experienced property buyer.