Biggest concerns when buying a house?

[Cody Kinzett]

Hello,

As someones who is looking to invest in the housing market I was wondering what everyone's concerns were when buying a house?! Apart from the whole financial risk part with mortgage payments etc, are you at all concerned about the price you're paying?! How do you find a price that you deem reasonable?! What tools are there to find a reasonable price to reach for settlement?! Do you get better at gauging price and value as you buy more houses or do you need to use professionals?!

Any insight would be helpful.

Cheers.

[Damap]

I don't understand what risk you talk about with mortgages but values are easy enough to establish, look at what is selling and talk to agents. Troll trademe you will soon get an idea of what a particular area is selling for. For $1000 a year you can subscribe to rpnz data services that allow you to search by area and display every sale nationwide so you can see exactly what people are paying on a daily basis.

[Cody Kinzett]

I think the RPNZ service might be a little out of my league in terms of pricing unless you believe it'll save me $1K. I looked into it and they use QV's service. Is QV a reliable source of information?!

[Damap]

They all use RPDATA which is the main real estate database in NZ and OZ. If you're an investor then a grand a year is nothing compared with how it equips you. Owners details, days on market, sales history, whether mortgaged or not ability to contact neighbours to amalgamate sites etc. It's a great tool if you are active.