Real Estate Tip: How to choose where to buy your first home?

For a home you intend to keep, especially one you pay off quickly and therefore far more cheaply, the cycle phase in which you buy matters less. (And buying in a slower market gives you bargaining power.)

Many may not have thought about your largest consideration: you. In other words, what are your plans in the next seven to 10 years?

This is what many property pundits give as the length of the average property cycle. But bear in mind that we have a fragmented property market - Sydney and Melbourne readers will be sighing over your 20 per cent deposit. Also, you’ll never know what phase you’re in until it’s over – in other words, how subdued or stratospheric prices will become.

TIP: The Brisbane market is more affordable than Sydney or Melbourne.

So I’m going to get personal: Do you envisage adding children to your partnership soon-ish? I’ve lost track of the number of people who tie up their money in a ‘home’ that all too quickly doesn’t accommodate them. Sure, you could keep it as an investment and upsize, but you’d need to be able to stretch to that… on reduced income. And – beware! – if you pay down a home and later turn it into an investment, you will have lost those interest deductions (just another reason all extra repayments should go into a mortgage offset account).

Don‘t forget that high property entry costs (although first homebuyers should look into current concessions) mean you should aim to hold each one you buy in your lifetime, for a long time.

In terms of location, it sounds like you know your budget, which is key. Start by simply researching the suburbs you could afford… you can see on CoreLogic’s new “Mapping the Market” website.

TIP: Buying into a location with good transport links or planned infrastructure upgrades is a smart move.

Then consider transport links (good call), planned infrastructure upgrades (a great signifier of capital growth) and existing/future amenities like schools, hospitals, shopping precincts and leisure facilities. You want to identify the up-and-comers.

But my top tip, once you’ve narrowed down your superb suburb, is to ask anyone who will answer (from real estate agents to kindly people at the fruit shop) to tell you the dodgy bits. It won't be that way forever, so buy there.

Click here for reference.