A broker for the deal or a broker for the plan
There was nothing wrong with the first property I bought. The suburb was fine and so was the price.
It still cost me about $13,000 to undo how I financed it.
If you plan to build a portfolio, you want a broker in your corner who thinks past the deal in front of you and prompts you to do the same. I didn’t have one.
As a buyers agent, I see this gap in first purchases a lot. Buyers put real effort into choosing the property and almost none into choosing who arranges the finance.
I’m not a mortgage broker and nothing here is credit advice. How a loan should be set up for you is a conversation for a licensed broker. My point is about who you choose to have that conversation with.
The broker I didn’t have
On my first property, the loan got arranged and settled, and the person arranging it did the job in front of them. Nobody asked whether I wanted to buy again, or what the loan would need to allow if I did.
I didn’t raise it either, because I wasn’t thinking like someone building a portfolio and nobody around me was prompting me to.
Where the cost showed up
For a long time there was nothing to notice. The repayments went out and the loan did its job.
Then a second purchase became a real option and the structure left me no room to move. It cost me about $13,000 in break and restructure fees to undo it before I could buy again.
Two different jobs