Apps

Purchasing your first home is a great achievement, however, it can be a daunting step. Technology takes some of the pressure off by creating some clever short cuts. Take a look at the following:

House hunter

Buying a property is full of new procedures that can be extremely confusing if you are new to the property market. The House Hunter app is a great tool for first home buyers as it can make the process easier and quicker.

Some of the useful features include: track and compare and unlimited number of houses, a scoring method to help identify which house suit your needs, list of information of each property including ‘must-haves’ and ‘missing’, a mortgage calculator and a Quick Notes feature to save time and typing when putting in information about a property.

SRO Mobile

Are you buying your first property in Victoria? Then this app will be extremely useful. The State Revenue Office of Victoria app helps first home buyers assess what Victorian grants they are eligible for. The Land Transfer Duty calculator is also available with this app.

tapMortgage

Do the terms stamp duty, transfer fees, first home concessions and mortgages make your head spin? Then take a look at the tapMortgage app to help clear the air. This app has a range of calculators for the items above as well for total interest paid, total savings for weekly or fortnightly repayments compared to monthly repayments as well as the savings you would make based on any extra repayments.

tapMortgage can help give you an indication of how much you can afford.

MyOFI

Open inspections are a large part of house hunting, but can be time consuming.

MyOFI is a great way to organise and speed up your open for inspection schedule. Being one step ahead of other potential buyers in the market can make all the difference.

All you need to do is sign up, enter your contact information and property search requirements and the app will give you an individual QR code. You can then give this to the real estate agent at every open house instead of filling out your information, saving you time.

This app also allows you to log all of your inspections to help you keep track. It will store the photos, address and agent’s details as well as any notes you wish to include yourself.

Savings Goal

Are you struggling to save for a 20% deposit? Saving 20% of the purchase price or more cannot only help give you a more competitive interest rate, but it can also keep other costs to a minimum, such as Lender’s Mortgage Insurance.

With this app, you simply enter a target amount and a target date and this app will give you a suggested schedule and will also track your progress. It will let you know how close you are to your target date, what proportion of your target you’ve saved and whether you are ahead or behind schedule. What’s even better is that you can create as many savings goals as you like.

Saving for a large deposit can be extremely advantageous when it comes to applying for a home loan, so the more you can save, the better.