First Home Buyer Grants: the good news

Pretty House If you are considering purchasing your first home in Victoria, the good news is that our government might give you more money.

From the 1st of July first home buyers purchasing a newly constructed home may be eligible for an increased First Home Bonus of $13,000. People buying their first (newly constructed) home in regional Victoria got even luckier - on top of First Home Bonus they may be eligible for another payment of $6,500, the First Home Regional bonus. This is all in addition to the First Home Owners Grant ($7000), of course.

Are you sick of salespeople door knocking your home?

Do not knock sticker If your answer to the question in my headline is yes, then you will be happy to hear the news. There is a way you can stop sales people from bothering you after work, when you are cooking dinner, settling your kids to sleep, or (finally!) sitting down to read a book on the couch, after a day’s work.

Remember when “Do not call” register was introduced? Well, now there’s a “Do not knock” campaign that can help you limit, if not completely eliminate, door-to-door sales.

Another interest rates rise and how it translates into our money

Interest Rates RiseToday RBA has lifted the interest rates again, for the 6th consecutive time. I didn’t mention any of the previous rate rises on Homeiown (why bother when the mainstream media is covering it well anyway), but this time is different.

What is so different about it?

The New And Improved Realestate.com.au

Realestate.com.au I’ve always found house-hunting to be stressful, but never imagined other people would feel the same way - I thought it was just me and my partner who would get nervous, frustrated and fight about which property we should or shouldn’t buy.

Well, guess what… I was dead wrong.

Domain.com.au: Inspect properties ONLINE

Property Video Listings One of the latest additions to Domain.com.au allows you to make your house hunting much more efficient, by saving your time, petrol and the stress of rushing to inspect 3 different properties within the same half an hour.

From now on, your inspections at Domain.com.au begin online.

People are in mortgage pain, yet interest rates are pushed higher

High rise building

There I was, reading the latest headlines to see what’s on in the property world - after all this is the busiest season - when I found these interesting articles, definitely worth sharing. This is not just news, but definitely is food for thought.

8 tips to cut your home bills

Cut home billsI’ve talked all about energy efficient new houses, but the reality is most of us are living in established homes. Does it mean there is nothing we can do about our energy bills?

Of course not. Here is a list of 8 things that are easy enough to do, affordable enough to implement and worth doing to pay less for cooling, heating and water. Some of these are really straight forward and I am probably not introducing new concepts - but never mind that, they still work if you give them a try.

What mortgage stress is and why should we care

Mortgage stress
If you watch or listen to or follow the news in whatever way, you couldn’t have missed this bit - on Tuesday this week the interest rates were left on hold by the RBA.

Phew… that was close.

Property news: 4 real estate articles worth reading

TV news roomLast week I came across some interesting articles.

Builders oppose to energy ratings on houses

Google wants its piece of real estate

Google Maps New Real Estate SectionIf I had to name the most interesting bit of real estate news this week, it would be about Google entering the real estate market (and starting their quest from New Zealand of all places). It doesn’t surprise me that they did - what took them so long is what surprises me. I mean, if you were in a position to grab a huge piece of a very yummy pie, why would you wait? Google literally rules the world of online advertising which leaves little chance of any real estate website competing with them.

According to the news, in New Zealand there is now a real estate section in Google Maps and it’s populated with listings from 2 big real estate websites in New Zealand. What more, Google invites any estate agency to upload its listings to Google for free.

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