Unknown costs of buying a home

Solicitor or conveyancer. You need a professional to do the work of transferring the property from the sellers name to yours, and in the process do some checks with council and other agencies to confirm the property is all that you’re paying for (think council approvals), isn’t expected to be impacted by any already planned roads or schools or other developments; that there aren’t any disputes with neighbours involving your new purchase etc. If the property is a unit then they would also check the strata company out, is it cashed up, are the levies being paid, are there known structural issues? Without starting a war I am going to say that in the main part a solicitor or a conveyancer do pretty much the same job for most straight forward transfers. You do get what you pay for, however, and I would not recommend some of the very cheap discounted services. Expect to spend around $1500 plus disbursements which might mean paying the rates for the year or some bank cheque fees.

Loan application fees, depending on the lender and the type of loan, allow $500 roughly.

Pest and building inspection. Quite literally qualified professionals inspecting the structure of the building, looking for leaks, rotten timbers, and particularly termites. Expect to spend around $250 per report.

Stamp duty, sitting at roughly 3.5% of the property value in NSW, this is one of the biggest costs in your new purchase. Stamp duty is charged on the contract that transfers the land – so if you’re building and it’s a separate contract it’s not charged on the build, this is a common question.

Connection fees, internet, phone, power, gas, pay TV etc, with varying costs you simply need to be aware of, leave yourself some money up your sleeve.

Removalist, you may choose to move yourself or hire a professional, do you need to allow for truck hire or at least a thankyou BBQ?

Deposit bond, a handy tool if you don’t have the cash ready to pay your deposit, a deposit bond is an insurance policy you buy that tells the seller you’ll pay them at settlement, and usually costs around 1.3% of the deposit amount (so $60,000 deposit is roughly $780).

Did you notice, theres no charge for your mortgage broker?

Agents fees and legal fees if you’re selling another home to buy this one, agents are typically charging between 1.6% including GST and plus marketing - and 2.75% including GST and marketing, and a solicitor will be around $1,000 plus any incidental costs.

Article for The Western Weekender