Buying a new home in South Australia

As the house buying process is so different to the UK, as a licensed real estate sales representative in a South Australia please let me know if there is anything that I can help you with or can clarify. I am currently working in Adelaide.

Hi we are arriving in Adelaide next week. Will look to rent for 6 months then buy. Looking for all advise available. Thanks

Hi we are arriving in Adelaide next week. Will look to rent for 6 months then buy. Looking for all advise available. Thanks

TBH its not difficult to work out the rental or buying system in SA.

If you've arranged a short term rental to start you off, be prepared to start getting on to realestate.com.au asap after you arrive (get the app on your phone is good) and start working out what areas you like the look of. Be aware that you could clock up a heap of miles if you chose suburbs that are not close together and could miss opens and so on. I'd try to focus on one direction or other depending on your needs. Also factor in where you may end up working and perhaps don't go for a suburb all the way down south if you are possibly going to be commuting north daily. The CBD is manageable for a commute from the far southern burbs but can still take a chunk of your day, if heading even further north, it might become hellish pretty quick. And the same for living north if working way down south.

Rentals are viewed en masse at open viewings generally. Till you find somewhere, plan your weekends and evenings accordingly. They have opens weekday evenings (and sometimes daytime ones). Plus weekend opens. They are short and sweet and if a property is nice then chances are a few people will be applying for it asap. The usual things like bond etc will apply. Also many places do 12 months rental agreements, not 6. And read up on what it means to break a lease should you be unhappy with your rental after a few months. I'd look for things like some form of decent air con for summer months and some form of heater (even if its a single woodburner in the living room or a gas fire) for winter. Screens on windows and doors are also a must. And enough plug sockets for you (some homes seem terribly short of them, especially in the living spaces and kitchen).

Buying - Its not difficult. There are criteria, financial etc to meet for the lenders, same as elsewhere. I am sure once you are here and find your feet you'll be able to work out what is what. It can be worth finding a decent mortgage broker for your first home buy. We used one and she was amazing. It was other parts of the process got us frustrated and fed up but that happens when house buying anywhere. I loved that once our cooling off period was done and even though we had 5 weeks till settlement, we knew that barring the finance not being finalised, the house was ours. No way out for the vendors. Discovered pre approval for a mortgage is a total joke and that if we waited around for that we'd probably still be waiting. Very glad that because we had a good broker who was happy we put an offer in we just got on and did so. It all fell into place after that and finance was fine.

If you have kids, be aware all high schools are zoned. If you live in a zone, thats the state high school your kids attend (unless lucky enough to get in on an IGNITE programme or some such at another school). A small number of primary schools are zoned, usually due to demand for places, hence them making a zone. I guess what I am saying is, especially if you buy, be sure you are happy with your choice of zoned school. It took me about 3 or 4 months to get to grips with schools and research, visit and so on and I was happy with where we then focused our house buying efforts on. We of course had to like the area also but the schools played a big part of where we ended up looking.

Fees when buying - they hurt, be prepared for them :wink:

Hi there,

Rental is similar to the UK except that 12 months tenancies are usual. There may well be landlords who for various reasons but this will certainly restrict your choice. I advise that if you have kids then choose schools first and rent with a view to purchasing at the end of the rental period. The house buying process is quicker and more certain here and settlement within 30 days of an offer being accepted is quite possible. Please let me know if you would like any further info and all the best for your move!