The real cost of buying property by yourself

UBank did some research in 2015 analyzing exactly how much time people spend house hunting.

According to the research:

33% spend 4-6 months looking

36% spend over 6 months looking

14% spend 7-12 months

9% spend over 2 years

Think about that. Nearly 1 in 10 home buyer’s take more than 2 years to buy a property.

What is the real cost of looking for a property by yourself?

1. What is your time worth?

Let’s say it takes you 1 year to find a property. And let’s say you are looking at 2 properties per weekend.

One year of house hunting works out to be about 150 hours per year.

What is your time worth? What could you do with an extra 150 hours?

2. The procrastination Tax

The property, particularly in the capital cities, generally appreciates. So, the longer it takes you to find a property, the more expensive the property will be by the time you get to it.

If say, a property that costs $1m is appreciating by 5% per year, then spending one year looking for property has cost you $50,000 in the higher purchase price. Ouch!

3. What have you missed?

There are implicit costs as well. Did you miss a child’s soccer or netball game? Did you have to give away a few rounds of golf? Brunch with friends or family?

Or perhaps you work on weekends, so your weekend time is even more valuable.

What is the cost of missing these moments in your life?

4. The cost of buying the wrong property

6-12 + months of house hunting is a long time, and most people understandably want their Saturday’s back. This is called “buyer’s fatigue” – exhaustion and boredom from the process of property inspections.

However, the real curse of buyer’s fatigue is that you buy the next available property, not the right property.

Say you are “over it”, and you buy an under-performing property. Let’s say this property costs $1m.

The cost of this property underperforming by only 1% per year has cost you $161k over 10 years and a whopping $550k over 20 years.

There is another way!

What if you could outsource house hunting to an expert who finds properties for a living. That would cost small a fraction of the cost above, and the value is enormous.

Property buyer’s agents are viewing 30-40 properties per week and have all of the industry relationships at hand. This is a tangible but unfair advantage in the market, saving you time, frustration, and money.

Let a buyer’s agent project manage the entire process for you.

For an obligation-free chat about how I can help you, please contact me on  john@bridgetobricks.com.au