How Aussie Expats Can Buy Australian Property Remotely
6-MINUTE READ
Living and working abroad is exciting and challenging – but can also mean you miss out on owning your piece of Australia while you are away! And potentially miss out on significant capital growth if you are away for a long period of time. The Australian property market has performed very well over the long term and shown exceptional resilience and growth. Over the past 30 years, Australian property has increased on average 7.25% pa according to a RBA research paper (Kohler & Merwe).
If you are like most expats, planning a 3 to 5-year jaunt – this often becomes 10 years or more once the perks of an overseas living kick in. Meanwhile, the property market in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and other capital cities continues to double in value every decade.
As an expat, whether you’re in New York, London, Singapore, Hong Kong, or Toronto, you’re probably keeping up to date on local news and seeing reports on rising house prices, new infrastructure projects, booming populations, and tightening in the supply and demand equation in many of our capital cities.
How can you get a slice of the action and buy your next home or investment property while living overseas? It’s not like shopping online and doing click and collect for your next property!
There’s plenty of hidden dangers at stake buying remotely and buying well requires a smart strategy and plenty of due diligence.
It’s vital that you have finances pre-approved before starting the searching process and the team at Odin Mortgage are best placed to assist with specialist services to expats and foreign buyers.
Using a professional buyers’ agent is the sensible way to buy from overseas. Looking at online photos will never give you a real perspective of the aspect, the views, the smell, the height, the street appeal, the light, the feel, and the context of the property. A local expert buyers’ agent can check out the neighbours, the extent of renovation works, the extent of suburb gentrification, and local development activity.
A licensed buyers’ agent at propertybuyer (Australia’s most awarded and trusted Buyers Agents) will undertake these seven steps to help expats find their dream home.
- Create a Buyers Brief – This is the strategy document, outlining the target suburbs, budget, type of property, key features and other requirements that are most important to you.
- Suburb Profiles – Once the target locations that suit your budget are determined, we give you a research report on key suburbs including median prices, historical growth, yields, vacancy rates, and the most recent comparable sales in the local area.
- Research and Shortlist – We review and inspect hundreds of properties each week to create a suitable shortlist of the best available properties that meet your brief. Via our extensive network we also uncover many off-market and pre-market opportunities to put you at the front of buying queue. We provide objective comments and advice and recommend the best ones to perform further due diligence.
- Evaluate – Once the best property is identified we complete a detailed market appraisal including a comparable sales analysis, pros and cons commentary and if an investment the projected yield and growth.
- Due Diligence – We organise independent pest and build inspections (or strata inspections for apartments), coordinate contract review by your solicitor and complete other research steps to ensure you are making the best decision to move forward.
- Auction and Negotiations – Based on our independent appraisal of value – we guide you on what price to offer and negotiate via private treaty or attend the auction on your behalf. This important step removes any emotion from the negotiation process and saves you from being worked over by the selling agents.
- Settlement phase – The final step is getting ready for settlement. By now your finance would have been unconditionally approved and if buying an investment property, we assist in selecting a local property manager to find and screen prospective tenants for you. We also attend the final pre-settlement inspection.
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Buying property is not like buying a car or a pair of shoes – yet some people spend more time planning their annual holidays than they do researching the property market. The benefit of having a local buyers’ agent on side means they save you huge amounts of time, searching and can quickly pin-point the right suburbs and opportunities.
Buyers’ agents also understand how selling agents act and think and use that inside knowledge for your advantage. They get access to multiple off-market opportunities that the average buyer will never know about. They know how to negotiate the lowest possible price – even in the midst of stiff competition. They know the right moves to make at auction to make the winning bid and appear as if they have limitless money.
Whether you have $500k or $20 million to spend, our team at propertybuyer is here to help you. We have specialist buyers’ agents in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Newcastle (and more connections around Australia). We search high and low and leave no stone unturned for our clients.
For diplomats, celebrities or other public figures we offer a specialised service with total discretion and anonymity. We can be your eyes and ears on the ground (but without the paparazzi following you around). For families, singles, professionals, executives and all other types of buyers, we treat them like family. We understand that buying a property is one of the most significant financial decisions and requires professional support. With over 35 awards for excellence and multiple accreditations you can be assured you are in safe hands with the propertybuyer team.
Please reach out today if you would like to find out more and visit https://www.propertybuyer.com.au/
About the author:
Rich Harvey, is a buyers’ agent, economist, property investor and CEO of www.propertybuyer.com.au – a totally independent buyers’ agency that specialises in searching, appraising and negotiating real estate exclusively for buyers.
Rich and his team at propertybuyer have purchased over 3000 properties for their clients and won 35 major awards including the prestigious National Telstra Business and National Buyers’ Agent “Award for Excellence”.
Rich has served as President of the Real Estate Buyers Agent Association of Australia (REBAA) and Chairman of the Buyers Agent Chapter of the Real Estate Institute of NSW to improve the professionalism and standards within the buyers’ agents industry.
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