On The Streets Of Sydney

These days, more and more options are presented to potential home buyers. There are a lot of good choices, houses, apartments, condos like one from KLCC properties. While renting seems like a very temporary option for most people, an outright home purchase can be too heavy for some, especially those who are not earning enough to pay for the high monthly mortgage fees. If neither of these two options work, there’s always the rent-to-own or lease option for everyone else.

But is it really for everyone else? The rent-to-own option, basically and as its name implies, allows for you to pay in a monthly rent where a portion of the rent fee goes to the equity of the house. That said, your future down payment will likely be in a lesser amount compared to when you purchase a house outright.

Good and Bad Sides

But as with anything, there are good sides and bad sides to it. And it is with careful consideration that you go through each of its pros and cons before jumping into it. For instance, depending on your agreement with the home seller, you may have to pay for the original price tag of the house, no matter what the market trends are. You’d be lucky if the market is bad for buyers then you’d get the house much, much cheaper, but you wouldn’t very much like it if everything else is cheap and you stay with its non-fair market price. And even when you do decide to bail out of the lease option at the end of the contract duration, there is no way you can get back the extra cash you put on the rentals.

So before you dot the I’s and line the t’s on your rent to own contract, here are some pros and cons to the less popular lease option:

PROS

• You get a much longer time to save up for a house without fear of losing it before you can make enough for the down payment.
• You get to actually try out the house and know how it feels to actually live there before you pay for it to become your own.
• Your monthly rents don’t go to waste as it helps you get closer to owning the house month after month.
• If the house’s value appreciates overtime, you don’t have to worry about having to pay it in its appreciated value but only in its original outdated price tag.

CONS

• The house might depreciate in value but you’d still have to pay for it in its much higher original price.
• You may fall out of love with the house and bailing out of it meant not getting back your cash.
• You’d have to pay a much higher rent, and you have very little control on how much of it would go to your lease option fund.
• You’ll lose everything you’ve invested on it on your monthly fee if you start losing the capacity to pay for it, without the option for refinancing since the contract is only between you and the homeowner.

This is my first post and i hope everyone will like it. Please always visit the site!

Thanks,
Cheng

Hello friends!

I am back again to help you all about FSBO. Hope this article will help. Please always visit the site! Thanks

Home-selling is stressful. Malaysian home-selling without an agent is likely to be twice or thrice the stress. The only way it can be a little less stressful than it actually is for other FSBO homeowners is if you’re (a) a former real estate agent, (b) a graduate of real estate school, or (c) you follow any of these tips towards a stress-free FSBO experience:

1. Think about whether this is what you want or not. FSBO is not something for everyone. It takes a lot of work, a lot of patience, and even more work. You have to do more than just home staging and open houses; you have to do the listing, you have to work on making your adverts awesome and attractive enough to be noticed amongst the tons of other homes on the listing. On top of that, you have to make sure that all the paperwork are well cared for and attended to – down to the last bit. Oh, and did I mention having to face every other potential client and their every visit? Yes, including those who have the ‘I’ll-come-whenever-is-convenient-for-me’ kind of customers. Needs quite a lot of thinking doesn’t it?
2. Read, read, read. Learn, learn, learn. Ignorance may be bliss at some point in our lives, but ignorance is the biggest enemy of FSBO selling. So be informed. Read all sorts of materials, fill yourself with tons of information that concerns real estate marketing because that is your biggest companion in this endeavor of yours. You have to learn everything from pricing your house to competitive marketing strategies on top of home staging techniques. Boy, that’s a lot of reading! See some tips on selling a house or a unit from Binjai Residency.
3. Set a budget. It’s much easier to set a budget if you don’t have to do all the marketing-related work. After all, with an agent, you are free from the stresses of having to pay for every ad and every poster. And by doing FSBO, you have no one else to trust but yourself for every little thing. So go ahead and figure out your every little responsibility, do a thorough research on the costs of each, and then set up a realistic budget for them and more importantly: follow them!
4. Never be too sensitive on the criticism. The very reason why agents mostly forbid the presence of the homeowner during a client visit is because of criticism. When the Malaysian client knows that the owner is at home, his assessment of the house might be a little limited and he won’t be fully comfortable about telling the truth. Also, as owner, you would naturally be a little overprotective about your house and may not take criticism so well. You just can’t have this when you’re selling FSBO. You have to be objective and totally detach yourself from the home since you’d be listening to practically everything that every potential client would have to say about your house.
5. Be patient. Patience has won more clients for the Malaysian real estate agent more than marketing prowess. So always have tons and tons of patience for the nitpicky, the fickle, the annoying customers; and more importantly, be patient about the waiting time – it might be loooong!

Please don’t forget to visit my last blog post. Thanks

Cheng

Home buying, or at least successful home buying, is a lot of patience and hard work, some luck, and tons of attitude – the good ones, of course! No one wants to work with a very difficult client, so naturally, don’t be one!

See your buying a Zehn Bukit Pantai, but what makes a buyer a bad buyer? How do you constantly check your character and your actions (and more importantly, reactions!) that make you a bad, annoying home buyer whose offer would likely be turned down merely over grounds of being mean and un-nice, or at least be refused all forms of bargaining and thus end up with not a good deal in hand at all?

Attitudes of a bad home buyer

I’ve listed down the attitudes of a bad home buyer with tips on how to avoid being one (or at least react less meanly)?

1. Don’t be too mean about your comments on the Malaysian house, especially if you’re looking to get a bargain on it. There are ways to euphemize your description; for instance you can say ‘not too complimentary’ instead of saying ‘they’re a total mismatch’. The rules on proper and effective bargaining never included berating each home you’re interested in just to make the owner feel bad about selling it too expensively. Remember, you need them as much as they need you so do not abuse your consumer power. This is especially important if you’re buying FSBO, although even real estate agents selling on the owner’s behalf would likely hate it too.
2. Don’t be too vocal about your fickleness. Only give your word when you’re 100% sure about the house. Saying “Alright, we’ll be back for it maybe within the weekend to finalize everything; I’m buying the house” half-heartedly and only to kill their hopes in the end is evil. You’re giving false hopes to people who are in dire need of getting their homes sold (or of the agent getting his commission).
3. The demanding Malaysian home buyer. So you ask, no – DEMAND - your home owner directly or through the agent to do certain stuff for you; you request tons of changes and they happily accommodate you thinking that you are indeed on your way to dotting the I’s and lining the T’s on that purchase contract. Lo and behold, you suddenly back out leaving a very disappointed owner and his agent. Boy oh boy, you’d be lucky if you haven’t yet signed on anything that could cost you a lawsuit! But trust me on this: you’ve likely gained enmity!
4. The bargaining Malaysian non-buyer. So you ask, and ask and ask and ask, and then bargain endlessly and aimlessly but you know that no matter how low your home buyer goes, you’re still not going to afford it. There are bargains that are probable; and there are those that would be a great example of miracle to actually happen. If you know it’s not within your budget, if you know your pre-approved mortgage won’t have you afford it (not in a million years!), don’t waste other people’s precious time in your bid to become the best haggler on earth.

Are you guilty of any of these?

See my previous blog post for tips and advice.

Thanks,
Cheng