Buying Your First Investment Property in Melbourne? Read This.
While the idea of buying your first investment property in Melbourne in 2025 may be exciting, it may bring with it quite a bit of stress.
That’s to be expected. Finding, assessing, securing and managing the purchase of an investment property involves a greater level of complexity which most buyers don’t anticipate.
Until it’s too late.
There’s much more involved than finding a house, apartment or townhouse you like and signing your name on the dotted line. The process can prove overwhelming.
For buyers considering property investment in Melbourne, the good news is that 2025 promises to be a year of opportunity.
But before you go ahead and do anything, it’s vital you understand the risks and come up with strategies to deal with the morass of information – and misinformation – swirling around the market place.
Or even better, get a seasoned professional Melbourne Buyers Agent to guide you through the complex web of factors and regulations, which make investing in 2025 such a maze.
Investment Property in Melbourne 101
We’ve devised this handy set of tips for first time investors - or for that matter, experienced investors - to guide them on some of the important things they need to know before ‘big buy’:
There is a whole army of people who can tell you exactly what you should buy and how much you should pay for it.
Many of these are well-intentioned people; like your property owning friend or Uncle Mario who’s made lots of money by investing in property years ago.
But some of them aren’t well intentioned at all – they’re just looking for a pay day.
Some of these are people paid to sell units in new developments (sometimes calling themselves ‘property advisers’), and accountants or financial planners who just happen to have a developer’s brochure handy.
Some of them are real estate agents offering ‘good advice’, some of them are newly qualified property advisers who are telling you over the phone to buy a property they’ve never inspected.
Whoever they claim to be, know one thing – unless you’re paying them directly, they aren’t working for you, they’re selling something on behalf of someone else. Free advice is never free, in the end, it will almost always cost you.
The only person who can give you good advice is someone you pay to work for you – and only you – who is a qualified and highly experienced buyers agent.
Risk is a part of any investment plan. Without risk, there is no reward.
Risk in this context refers to how much loss you are willing to accept in return for a certain level of gain.
You need to understand two things up front. The first is your personal risk profile which will guide you in making decisions to ensure you only purchase an investment property in Melbourne appropriate for your risk profile and needs.
The second is that real estate investments are complex and deal with risk by minimising it through proven, fact-based strategies.
If anyone offers you strategies which are ‘high return, no risk’ or based on simplistic ideas like ‘good property always doubles every seven years’, run.
Instead seek out an experienced and qualified adviser who can guide you on how to deal with risk and return.
As much as we want to manage our finances ourselves, making decisions about property investment in Melbourne will almost always require mortgage finance.
In the same way as you should only rely on an experienced qualified buyers agent to select the right property, you should always seek out top-notch finance advice from an experienced mortgage broker or home-lending banker.
They will help determine your borrowing capacity and provide the best loan structuring for your real estate needs.
Property Mavens can refer you to our network of specialist lenders who can help you buy property in Melbourne, the Victorian regions and Albury Wodonga.
From research to negotiation, finances to the actual acquisition, the process of deciding which property to buy requires a specialised skill set and deep industry knowledge.
99% of buyers do not have this and too often, we see buyers over-estimating their skills and putting their hard-earned money into the wrong property.
This can see their properties underperform the market for years, often through ‘off the plan’ investments. Sometime, buyers decisions can be disastrous.
Some properties can look great on the surface but below the surface, there are deep seated problems.
Property investors and home buyers should always rely on the reports of specialist professionals before buying anything.
These professionals include an experienced, qualified buyers agent, a pest inspector, and a highly experienced building inspector to ensure there are no problems with a purchased property.
This is a risk reduction process where you are able to determine additional costs or expenses to factor in before considering a purchase.
As soon as you’ve decided on an investment property in Melbourne, it is imperative to have the sales contract reviewed by an experienced conveyancer or solicitor to ensure every aspect is thoroughly reviewed and nothing is left to chance.
These professionals will able to point out any areas of risk in the contract so you are well informed about everything before you sign.
If you have special conditions you want to add to the contract, they will be able to help you term them and insert them into the contract to ensure they are legally enforceable.
Once the property contract has passed into your ownership, you should find an experienced property manager to manage your new asset on your behalf.
Take the time to carefully evaluate and select a property manager as there is a wide variety of these professionals operating in the market – and not all of them are good.
Property Mavens maintains a network of top-notch property managers for our clients and we highly recommend being quite discerning when it comes to selecting the right agency.
We can help you with most aspects of the process such as researching, searching, negotiating and purchasing among others. Paying for a buyer’s agent to help you is often cheaper than making a mistake.
For more information or assistance with investing in property, get in touch with our friendly team of buyer’s agents today.
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If you want to invest or buy the right home for your budget, or sell your property CLICK HERE to book a free consultation , or call us on 03) 9988 2266 for a chat about securing your financial independence.
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