Thursday, October 3, 2013

Is buying a home and buying an investment property the same?


No, buying a house for you and buying an investment property are two different purchases.

You may be buying property in both cases, but the motivation for doing so are quite different. One, you a buying with your heart and the other you are buying with the calculator.

When you are buying your own home, you have a personal wish list that you want to achieve - or as close as you can. Maybe you want to live in a certain area, with a minimum number of bedrooms and space with all of this coming within budget.

With an investment property, all that matters is finding a property that is in demand that will increase in value overtime. So it doesn't matter what you personally think of the property, it's about how easy it would be to rent out, how easy it is to maintain and how much it will increase in value over time. So who cares if it's got 3 bedrooms instead of 4 and there isn't much of a backyard, because the rental yield looks fantastic, and the value of the property is on the up and up.

So make sure that when you are looking at property that you have the right 'hat' on. Ask yourself a few questions:
  • Is this property purchase about my financial future or is it about my day-to-day life?
  • What do I want this property to do for me in the long-term?
  • Am I going to live here?
An investment property will take extra work to find. The best ones are usually in popular suburbs, are close to amenities such as transport, schools, restaurants, employment and parks. Which means competition to find these properties will be fierce. So making sure you have a reliable team on your side helping with those purchases will do two things: 
1 Allow you to pounce on the deals as fast as possible. 
2 Keep your heart out of it, and make sure it comes down to the numbers only.

So no, buying an investment property is quite different than buying your own residence. You need to approach it differently and always keep in mind, it's not about you, it's about other people who will be living in it.

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