Properties for Sale

The first step is to decide what kind of home will suite your families lifestyle.    Create a 'Must Have List' and discuss this list with all family members, including children.

Anticipate potential changes in your family's lifestyle and size, children, extended family, grandparents moving in, and these days the growing trend towards working from home.

Secondly, decide what location will be convenient for all family members, taking into consideration schools, shops or extracurricular activities that are important to all of the household members, and how long you intend to live there.

Thirdly, define individual priorities.  Decide what are the privacy and needs of each family.  Keeping in mind the needs of children change dramatically as they mature.  Privacy and their own space do become a priority especially during high school years.

You have found the home of your dreams and yo can afford it!!

There are two ways to buy a property, either through private treaty or at an auction.    With private treaty (privately negotiated with the Vendor through the introducing agent), offers made can either be unconditional or conditional.  

An unconditional offer means you are committed to buying the house when terms are agreed upon, terms meaning price, settlement date, deposit payable. 

A conditional offer means that you will buy the property only if certain conditions listed on the offer to purchase are satisfied.   Common conditions on a Contract of Sale could be finance, a building and pest inspection.

Your Offer is Accepted

Once your offer has been accepted you will be required to pay the deposit as specified in the Contract of Sale.  You may have already paid a partil deposit or a 'token deposit' (prior to acceptance of the offer) as a show of good faith that you intend to purchase the property.

The Vendor will then sign the Contract of Sale.  At this point, a 'Contract of Sale' exists which is a legally binding document.  Queensland does have a cooling off period of 5 business days which enables you, the purchaser to opt out of the Contract of Sale.  If you are unsure about your rights, seek legal advice before entering into a Contract.

Once the offer is accepted and a Contract of Sale exists you should take out a cover note to insure the property.