Thinking of building? Get ahead and find out how much you can afford for a home.
Building a home is an exciting journey and after visiting display homes and getting through the dreaming phase, you eventually fall in love with a home design that you could see yourself living in.
But first things first, it’s good to know how to determine how much you can afford, to find the perfect home in your price range.
How do you find out your price range?
You need to be realistic and still manage your money alongside paying off a mortgage. To do this, there are a few things to take into consideration including your personal finances, borrowing options and the total costs of buying.
We’ve put together some questions you’ll need to ask yourself alongside some handy info to get you started on your home building journey.
First, let’s talk income - Is your income regular or irregular?
It’s important to consider your income situation and whether you could sustain mortgage repayments if you don’t have regular income. Whether you’re self-employed, working part time or full time or in any other situation, you need to dive into your income situation.
How much can you put aside with your income?
With your current income, how much would you feel comfortable with paying monthly towards your mortgage? A quick look at our calculators can show you how much you could borrow, as well as how much your home loan repayments would be.
Once you know this rough figure, consider if you’d be able to live with your income minus that amount.
A look into debt
Are you paying off a car, credit card debts, student loans or any other forms of debt? Lenders will want to know about your existing debt to understand your situation and help them determine whether to approve your home loan application as well as how much you could borrow.
Every situation is different, and if you find yourself asking ‘Should I pay off my debts first, or save for a home deposit?’ the answer would be different depending on who’s asking. Our advice would be to chat to someone who could help. They can assist you with where you stand financially and what your next steps are and how you can reach your home ownership goals.
What do you spend monthly?
We all have monthly expenses, so it’s a good idea to have a clear understanding on how much of your income goes towards them. We understand that this is sometimes difficult to track, especially if no month seems the same. The size of your household and spending habits all affect this figure.
However, there are certain things that are unlikely to change which could help give you an estimate on your monthly expenditure.
Basic monthly expenses
To get you started, there are a few essentials that would pretty much make anyone’s list along with some examples:
- Food: groceries &, take away meals included daily lunches and coffee's
- Clothing: uniforms, laundry expenses
- Transport: petrol, car insurance, tolls, train & bus fares
- Healthcare: private healthcare
- Entertainment: movies, going out money
- Personal care: gym memberships
- Miscellaneous
Utilities
You also need to consider how much you’re spending in monthly utilities, such as:
- Electricity
- Gas
- Water
- Netflix/Foxtel/Stan
- iTunes/Spotify
- Internet
- Mobile
It’s also not a bad idea to have a look into areas you could potentially be saving a buck or two. If you’d like some insight into how much you could save, check out our save more money tool. You can even have a look at our savings target calculator to help visualise how much you should be saving weekly to achieve your goal.
Getting finance ready is the most important step in your building journey. We recommend you speak to highly qualified professionals who can assist you in getting finance ready. Stephen Lemm from Mortgage Choice is a Construction Loan expert and can help you move through these early stages.
