Source: Aidan Devine
House hunters are going to extreme lengths to get through the home buying process after realising the required leg work is chewing up too much of their time.
A new study revealed the home purchasing process, including the time it takes to learn key concepts, search home loan deals and property listings, has grown to 45 hours, on average.
This was more than a full work week, but most house hunters had little free time outside office hours and across weekends to devote to the process. The result was many tried to get clued up on the market while doubling up on other activities.
More than four in five buyers surveyed in the St George Bank research said they went through part of the buying process while on holiday, while 35 per cent squeezed in the work while watching TV.
More than a quarter of the nearly 1500 Aussies surveyed said they undertook part of their research during their lunch break.
Especially time-poor Aussies said they did their research in the bathroom, with one in 10 admitting they searched deals and listings while sitting on the toilet.
The most onerous part of their search was simply knowing what was involved, houses hunters said.
More than three-quarters of buyers said understanding the home- buying process was a key challenge, while a similar proportion said their challenge was “navigating” the market. Other time-consuming challenges were “interpreting financials”.
St George general manager Ross Miller said some buyers' searches were being prolonged by “information overload”.
“First-home buyers are pained and delayed by the amount of information they need to process (and) by the amount of paperwork involved,” Mr Miller said.
He added that many buyers had a “general overwhelming feeling of simply not knowing where to start” when buying a home.
These challenges were compounded by the recent rebound in housing markets in Sydney and Melbourne.
Median prices in both cities jumped about 8 per cent over the past year but there were even faster rises in Sydney's inner-ring regions.
Inner-west prices jumped nearly 13 per cent, while increases in all housing categories in the eastern suburbs, northern beaches and CBD region were about 9 per cent. Ryde rises were 10.3 per cent.
First-time buyer Victoria Owens said trying to search for a home in the rebounding market was a challenge.
She tried squeezing it between a busy work and social schedule and realised her search was sucking up too much time.
“I found the whole real estate process overwhelming,” the 35-year-old said. “I knew little about property and I was constantly worried there was something important I didn't know about.”
Her frustrations mounted as she missed out on multiple properties in the tight Bondi market. “Lots of places in the area were really crappy but when there was a good property the competition was hard,” she said. “I started to run out of time. It just wasn't my world.”
Ms Owens eventually hired a buyer's agent and said it made all the difference. She is now the proud owner of a unit in Bondi Junction. “It cost more but it was totally worth it,” she said.
Mr Miller said buyers could overcome some of the challenges of getting into the market by searching properties by their “non-negotiables” list, rather just traditional location.
Doing this would open a whole set of options and locations the buyers may not have considered, he said.
“For example, if being beachside and close to schools is top of your list, searching by these functions may reveal a whole range of ideal properties in previously unconsidered locations and, within your price range.”
The St George study, conducted with the help of Lonergan Research, also revealed the proportion of Aussies with plans to purchase their first property within the next five years has increased 34 per cent since 2018. “The current low-rate environment is likely to have played a role in this – and many first-home buyers may be thinking now is the time to get into the market,” Mr Miller said.
There may be the added urgency from buyers to get into the market to pre-empt further price rises, he said.
St George released the research on the back of the launch of a home- seeker app that includes a market thermometer and property price estimates for valuing homes.