My favourite house in CroydonYou thought buying a car was complicated! For anyone wanting a checklist (who doesn’t love a checklist) here is basically mine so far:

  • Open inspection
  • Family inspection / Attempted building inspection
  • Check public transport timetables and/or traffic
  • Pest inspection
  • Building inspection
  • Quotes on repairs and alterations
  • Check heritage listing
  • Check zoning for the area and surrounds
  • Council check for previous development applications* (see below)
  • Council check for proposed development applications
  • Check council codes to see if any planned modifications will have a chance of approval
  • Survey inspection and verification (if there is even one post-1881)
  • Sewerage and other utility diagrams and connections (and possibly easements)
  • Solicitor contract inspection
  • Prepare a solicitor/conveyancer to do the conveyancing
  • Alteration of contract terms (land tax, mistakes, settlement time)
  • Talk to mortgage providers to get pre-approval and negotiate rates
  • Understand and compare loan rates, structures, flexibility and features
  • Decide whether rates are going up or down over the next 30 years
  • Decide whether house prices in the city, suburb and street are going up or down over the next 10 years
  • Organising a cheque to pay the deposit on the day of the auction

Exhausting and risk-laden probably sums it up the best. I don’t know how some people move house every year or two!

* On another note Burwood Council (and most impressively most councils) has an online DA system. There is a very simple little hack to get development applications from further back in time. That highly disguised “num_days” parameter can be changed to whatever you like. Maybe 1800 works well?