How to buy a house for less than half the price- Four

This is good indeed, because at the end of the day, you need to eat, you need to send your children to school (a good school for that matter) and you also need other basics like household furniture and a car, if you do not already have these.

Because of changing times, the reality is that wages have not kept pace with interest rates on mortgages. That is why, not even those in the middle income bracket qualify for houses built for the low income group.

To obtain a loan you will have passed all these stages. It is therefore now up to you to decide your priorities.

But what you now have to bear in mind is that although the house is said to be yours – and you can boast about this to friends- it is not really ours until you have fully paid for it. Until then, it belongs to the building society. You cannot use that house as collateral until you have paid for it. In other words you are just a caretaker.

Indeed, during the first few months, your thinking may be clouded by the fact that you would have gone through a struggle to get the deposit and the loan.

This is why I am giving you this advice so that you enter into an agreement with the full knowledge of what you are committing yourself to.

Normally, when you get a loan, the building societies do not give you the options available like paying your mortgage in 20, 15, 10 or five years. You seem to have only two choices: buying it for cash or paying in 25 years.

On the other hand, I must hasten to add that they do not hide this information either. As I said earlier, they normally have brochures explaining the options open to you but you simply do not bother to read these brochures or ask your interviewer what options there are.

If you ask your interviewer (the building society employee who usually handles your application and advises you about the deposit, interest rates etc) about the various options he or she will gladly tell you the options available.

Now that you know, please ask for these options before you sign anything. This could mean a saving of thousands of dollars.

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