New incentives are set to support home buyers, but make sure you don’t become blinded by a good opportunity. Photo: Harlz.
Buying your first home can be an exciting endeavour and with the expansion of the government’s scheme it’s now becoming a reality for more people.
But with properties being built at speed to meet demand and competition already getting hot, it can be easy to become swept up in it all and miss crucial red flags.
When my husband and I bought our house almost four years ago, I was under the mistaken impression that everyone would just do the right thing.
I didn’t know much about building and have a lack of tradies in my family who could offer expert advice.
Given this lack of knowledge, handiness and free help, I did not want a reno job, so we splurged to buy a new duplex that we could live in without the need to make constant fixes … or so we thought.
We were pushed to put down the deposit and sign on the dotted line within days of our first walk-through – warned that once it was opened to inspection three days later we would easily be priced out.
There were a couple of things to still be done, such as finishing the fencing and installing a glass privacy screen – neither of which came to fruition.
But we had a house, and it was ours.
Then we got a dog … then we got another dog … which we could do because we had a house.
Then the big rains came.
It was unprecedented and there was a lot of flooding right across the region, so when the house sprung a leak, it wasn’t the strangest thing that could’ve happened.
Over the course of the next two years the leaks kept coming; water built up in our roof and grew mould, walls bubbled, floorboards warped … everything just constantly got wet.
Because it was under builders warranty insurance as a new property, we would call the builder directly, who was not from the Illawarra, and he would occasionally send people to do patchwork, which sometimes ended up causing more issues.
I met the builder twice in total.
There was always a reason he couldn’t come.
His wife was pregnant. He had COVID. His brother-in-law fell off a ladder.
The night after I gave birth to our son, our house flooded so badly it caused almost $30,000 worth of contents damage.
Eventually the builder stopped picking up the phone, so we called the commission and were told he had gone into liquidation and it was an issue for insurance to solve.
This prompted independent builders and inspectors to come and make assessments and judge the property, and my eyes were opened to the countless corners that were cut.
After the tender was put out and a new builder was appointed to fix the issues (fortunately covered under builders insurance) we were asked to move out so that problems could be solved.
We moved into a two-bedroom apartment with our two dogs and four-month-old baby.
It was August 2024 and we were expected to be back in by that Christmas.
But the problems ran deeper than the eye could see and couldn’t be solved so easily.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars of work needed to be done, with new tasks constantly having to be approved by the insurer before work could begin.
We just returned, 14 months after we left.
Now, we have a home … again. And it’s ours, and it’s fixed, but it serves as a constant reminder.
There are some situations where assuming the best in people is a great thing – buying a house is not one of those times.
So if you’re ready to jump into the property market and take advantage of new incentives, take this tale as a warning.
If you are not an expert yourself, allocate the extra money and time to have someone independent from the project have a look at the property under a microscope.
If you miss out on a place because you choose to take the time for a second opinion or to scrutinise a bit more closely, I guarantee another will eventually come along.
