House in a Minute

We're so excited coz we just bought a 3-bedroom house. Surprised? Kami rin.

Ever since we stepped foot in NZ, my partner and I have always planned to buy a house within a year. This is also in preparation to my daughter's arrival in April next year. I arrived January 2006 and our target month to buy a house is October-November 2006. At first, it seemed impossible, though we really wanted to buy a house before we bring my daughter here.

July 2006 when we started viewing houses. One house a week is not too bad. It's still early anyway. We initially went to ASB bank to apply for a pre-approval. We're thinking of borrowing 100% of the amount from the bank. Napre-approve naman kami - for a certain amount. The problem is, ang daming fees na babayaran. Sa fees pa lang, talo ka na. Pero since me figure na, ok na rin sa amin.. kesa nanghuhula kami ng amount na pwede naming hiramin sa bank.

September 16 when we saw this cute house in Newlands. Isang picture lang ang nakalagay sa internet at it looks modern. It is still within our initial budget so perfect sana. We contacted the agent and arranged for a special viewing. The house is "sooo" perfect for me. Unang pasok ko pa lang sa house, na-feel ko na ang connection namin. My partner loved it initially, too. Pasok sa halos lahat ng requirements namin sa isang house - malapit sa main road and bus stop, modern style inside and out, modern kitchen, less than 5 years old, good insulation (all windows are double glazed), may deck din naman, mukang tahimik naman sa paligid. In short, this is the house for me. The only problem is.. Closed tender siya and sa October 3 pa ang closing. Meaning, sa Oct 3 mo pa malalaman kung ano ang result ng tender. Closed, so hindi mo alam kung sino ang mga kalaban mo sa bidding (kung meron man). And Oct 3 is more than two weeks away. Meaning, two weeks ka pang di hihinga while waiting for the result... na hindi ka pa nga sure kung ikaw ang magugustuhan.

CLOSED TENDER - This is a type of offer wherein, pagsasama-samahin ang lahat ng offer sa property at sabay-sabay rereviewhin ng vendor (sa closed tender date). Pipiliin niya ngayon ang best offer - not necessary the highest one. Ang usual na tinitingnan dito is yung offer at yung mga conditions na binibigay ng buyer. Kung marami ka masyado conditions sa offer mo, tapos mababa pa ang offer mo, you can forget about winning this bid. Hehehe.

One week ko ring inisip isip at iniyakan ang house na 'to. The asking price is 10K less our initial budget. Ok na sana, kaso, I really wanted to win coz I really wanted this house. Gusto ko ng sure win and the only thing we can think of during that time is to give two offers:

Offer#1: Yung asking price with no conditions (meaning, susugal kami sa quality ng house)
Offer#2: 20K above the asking price but subject to builder's report, finance and title search.

Offer#1 is ok. But offer number 2 is not. We're 10K short. Actually, less than 10K short pero ayaw naman naming masagad ang pera namin so we thought of the following options:

1. Talk to our ASB contact and persuade her to increase our loan by 10K.
2. Look for another bank that might also give us 100% loan but 20K higher than what ASB is giving. Although during that time, wala kaming alam na ibang bank na nagbibigay ng 100%.
3. Raise enough money (in less than 2 weeks) and go to Westpac to apply for a 90% loan. At least, less ang fees dito dahil meron kaming Telecom employee pac.

Out of these three, we decided to take option 3. Our means of raising enough money is to borrow from our friends. Huhuhu. But before telling them, we decided to speak to our mortgage broker first to check if we have other (or more) options.

Sept 20 nung kinausap namin si broker. She brought us this very good news! Just that Wednesday, nag-start nang mag-offer ang Westpac ng 100% loan to first time home buyers. Sobrang ganda nga raw ng timing namin. Actually, nakausap na namin siya around July 2006 and sinabi niya noon na although maganda ang offer ng Westpac, they can only give us a max of 90% loan. And that time, di pa enough ang pera namin to make up to 10% of the amount na gusto naming i-loan.

Anyway, so we took this option. Guess what?? Now we can borrow more than 70K of what ASB is offering us. Less all the fees (waived!)! Sabi ni broker, eto raw ang amount na pwede naming hiramin na hindi namin iindahin ang mortgage. Wow! That's actually more than what we are asking for! Ang bait talaga ni Lord.

Grabe, ang haba na nito. If you're keen on knowing what happened next, just read on to my next post. Inaantok na ako eh (yawn!)