Advice for first-time buyers can be a little overwhelming and confusing,

But not to worry it’s our job to walk you through the process of home buying for the first time, and to take the worry off your shoulders. Here is some of the advice for first-time buyers available from Avery & Co.

What we offer

It’s almost key for us to meet you in person, and will be highly recommended anywhere you go. This contact means we can go through the whole process of home buying from arranging your mortgage, negotiating the price of your new home with estate agents, submitting offers and concluding the deal. We don’t change any fee for the initial advice and we find meeting in person with one of our conveyancing team members will give you lots of helpful information before you go out to look for your first property. If you can’t manage to get to our office, then we do offer home visits in the evening at no extra cost. We also provide the option to communicate by phone or email to get you all the informational required to start on the property ladder.

It’s vital to note that we don’t charge for any initial advice or for submitting an unsuccessful offer to buy a property. You only pay a fee when your offer is accepted and we start a deal with the estate agent. Before we go ahead with anything we do provide a very detailed estimate of any fees so we don’t have that creeping up on you at the end. The estimate will breakdown the fees, VAT and other costs such as land registry charges.

Once you’ve found your property

When you find a suitable property it’s recommended that you contact us straight away. This is so that you can ensure you get in there first to secure the home. Don’t even wait until the next business day! Phone or email us and inform us on the particular property you’re interested in so we can offer advice immediately on how to get the ball rolling. We will often negotiate  the price on your behalf to secure the property at the lowest possible figure and also a moving date that suits you. A property may be advertised at a certain price but we will assess in our discussions with the selling agent if there are any opportunities to negotiate a price.

This will depend on the market climate and the particular property that you are interested in, but it’s job to try and secure you the property of your dreams at the lowest price possible.

Alongside this we can offer to put you in touch with a mortgage adviser who will be to search the mortgage market for the best deal to suit your particular needs. We will work closely with the adviser to ensure the mortgage is secured before we conclude a contract. The adviser will offer to meet you in your own home, if this is preferred.

When you’ve been accepted

Once your bid for a particular house is accepted we will examine the title deeds of the property and also a number of reports and searches from the local authority and land registry in order to safeguard your interests and to ensure that the property is suitable for you and marketable when you come to sell on at a future date.

We will ensure that you have taken account of the comments made in the Home Report for the property which the seller will have obtained and paid for before the property went on the market. It is important that you read carefully all the sections of the Home Report and raise any queries you may have with us before we make an offer and certainly before we conclude a contract to buy the property. Although it should not be necessary for you to arrange your own survey, some mortgage lenders will insist upon carrying out their own survey on the property before offering to provide a mortgage and therefore it is essential that this is established before the contract is concluded for the purchase of the property.

In certain circumstances you may decide to have your own independent surveyor carry out an inspection of the property perhaps to double check the value placed on the property in the home report or to check some other aspect of the house. Particularly with very old properties where there appears to be maintenance issues, it may be prudent to consider having tradesmen check the property to ensure there is no serious issues with damp, rot, woodworm or roofing or other such problems which if unattended could result in substantial costs to you.

Advice for first-time buyers does not need to be complicated or expensive. Having a survey done by an experienced RICS professional will ensure you have the facts to hand about the property you want to buy, and if you want an independent valuation done to make sure you are paying the right price, they can do that too if they are a member of the RICS Valuer Registration which is is an independent system of regulatory monitoring, which includes a register of valuers.  Avery & Co. are happy to guide you through what is potentially a very stressful process and walk you through it with as little stress, upset or confusion as possible.