Factors That Influence Your Property Investment

There are many people who look at property investment as an income-generating opportunity. To achieve their goal, they develop a plan to calculate their returns, the total investment required, their income and their present and future expenses. These people also consider the risk-reward ratio before they invest in a property.

You need to have an investment plan that will calculate your total cash outflow and inflow. This will give you an idea on the financial benefit of buying a property and give help you calculate the amount that you need to borrow. If you find it difficult to calculate these details you can use software packages that are available in the market.

When buying a property you need to calculate

a) The loan required
b) The cost of the purchase
c) The cost of maintaining the property

Loan Required

Most people take out a loan to finance their property investment. Here are a few factors that you need to consider when taking a loan

i) There many people who pay only the interest on the loan that they have taken. The interest that they pay can be deducted from their income. People usually opt for repayment of both the principle and the interest when the rate of interest is high.

ii) You also need to decide on the type of loan that you require. You can take out a fixed rate loan, floating rate loan, line of credit and split loan. If you feel that interest rate is likely to rise then it is best that you opt for fixed rate loan. A variable rate loan is usually opted for when the interest rate is likely to fall.

iii) Most lenders will give you loan only up to 90 percent of the property value. If you want to borrow more you will have to take mortgage insurance on the property, which could be expensive. The loan that you take will depend on your requirement and risk appetite. People who expect property prices to rise will gamble on the rise and have less equity in the property.

Once you have decided on the loan amount and the type of loan, you need to calculate the borrowing cost and cash-flow you need to generate to repay the loan taken.

Cost of Purchase

Land cost is not the only factor that you need to consider when you buy a property. You need to include expenses on legal representation, stamp duty, surveys, insurance, registration of title, investigations, valuation fee, commission to real estate agents and all other expenses you incur when buying a property.

Cost of maintaining the property

You also need to calculate the cost of maintaining the property. Some maintenance cost that you pay include water tax and water charges, maintenance and repair charges, local taxes, expenses on maintaining the books, insurance, security expenses and all other expenses that you incur in ensuring the safety of property.

Therefore it is important that all property investments must be made only after careful evaluation the financial feasibility of your investment.