Home Buying Tips

Home Buying Tips: One

Why you want to buy the home is more important than how to buy the home; as how is a result of why.

Home Buying Tips

Home Buying Tips: Two

Location, Location, Location

Your ideal home should have an uncomplicated surrounding, good access to public transport, good neigbourhood schools, and excellent amenities.

Home Buying Tips: Three

Generally, Chinese will prefer such house numbers and floor numbers as 6,8,9, 12,16,22... and avoid such number as 4, 12,33, 44......

Home Buying Tips: Four

Your ideal home should have the following environments :

Clean: Not too close to day or night market ; as the air will be full of foul smell, it can be turned into breeding place for mouse and mosquitoes.For the same reason, stay away from factories, recycle plant, rubbish dump and incinernation plant.

Quiet: not that it must be quiet all the time, but at least no noise pollution after certain hours, so that you can have a good night sleep. If the house is near the main road, try to install windows that are sound proof.

Close: supermarkets, convenient shops, schools, clinics, restaurants should be within 10 minutes walking distance.

Green: the neighbourhood should have greenery, parks, and places to exercise.

Home Buying Tips: Five

Feng Shui and your home

Don't buy old house that is full of exciting stories; the maintenance cost of the old house will also be high.
Avoid irregular shape of house; the land and the house should be square as far as possible. oblong, sharp edge and round rooms are difficult to decorate.
Avoid viewing any potential home when you are not feeling well, or have just experienced a string of bad lucks. The best time to view the potential home is after raining day, or typhoon, as the water marks will show very clearly.

Home Buying Tips: Six

Know the total investment (including stamp duty and legal fee) for the home, and the housing loan you need. The interest rate will affect the monthly repayment sum. As a rule of thumb, the monthly repayment sum should not be more than one third of your take home pay, and if possible the total sum borrowed should not be more than 50% of the house value.

Home Buying Tips: Seven

If the house you want to buy is still under construction, and you make a decision to buy based on the show house/flat put up by the developer, you should remember that the show house is different from the house you are buying, as the show house

is always clean (no cooking).

has a designer's furniture (nice to look at but not necessarily useful)

is so neat and spacious.

In reality, your home will never be the same as the show house, as you need to cook, stay in and have a lot of unwanted items (mostly seldom used ) lying around.

Home Buying Tips: Eight

Best time to view the house.

Day time - peak hours in the morning and peak hours after office hours to see the traffic conditions of the estate and vigour of the neighbourhood.

Night time - any night bazzars around, noise pollution level, areas that are close to KTV, PUB will have different set of problems.You can also estimate the occupancy rate of the houses in the estate. When many houses are vacant, security may be a potential problem.

Larger community

Take a slow walk for 10-12 minutes to find out what kind of amenities are available in the larger community.

Smaller community

Check the immediate neighbours to find out whether they are friendly, and helpful. Bulky items and unwanted furniture lying around the vincinity are considered fire hazard. Look for signs of vandalism and tidiness of the estate to come to a conclusion how civic minded your neighbours will be.

Weekdays

If the estate is not purely residential, then you may want to take a look at what other activities are being carried out in the estate. What kind of people visit the place? Any policemen in the vincinity .....

Weekends

Check the number of residents using the amenities, if they are vey few people in the swimming pool, amusment parks, then neighbourliness might not rank high in the estate.

Hope my home buying tips are of some help to you.

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