For most people, buying a house will probably be the largest single investment they will make in
their life time. Ordinarily, this should be an exciting and fulfilling exercise, however it can also be
very tiring and if mishandled can be the largest single mistake that they will make in their life time.
Many a times and sadly, people have lost thousands of dollars by entering in to wrong property
deals which could have been avoided by just employing a few tips before releasing that hard earned
money saved over years. In this article, I look at three processes that can be employed to help you
the buyer to get a good property deal. This is not exhaustive at all, but arises out of my own
observation over the years of areas that are often overlooked particularly by first time home buyers
hence my focus on these areas.
1. Where to Start
Before one begins to look at available properties that are for sale, there must be a clearly
defined budget of the total amount available for the purchase. Within the budget amount,
one must be cognisant of embedded costs such as transfer fees which are fairly significant
and within the transfer fees are other costs such as stamp duty which fall to the account of
the purchaser or buyer. A word of caution to most first time home buyers is that within your
budget, it may be prudent to reserve anything between 1.5 to 2.5% of the total budget
amount for repair works to the acquired property. Given the past ten years of hyperinflation
in Zimbabwe, most of the properties in stock are in need of some repair and maintenance
work. The percentages given are by no means cast in stone nor arrived at by some formula,
what is critical is to be aware that most of the property stock available in Zimbabwe requires
either repair works, refurbishment or even major upgrade therefore it is critical to factor this
in your budget.
A strong word of advice is ‘Be strict with yourself and stick to your budget, do not allow
estate agents to tempt you to overstretch by looking at more expensive properties priced
beyond your budget, unless your agent is sure they can negotiate the price downwards to
your budget.’
The second and equally important is ‘Seek professional advice from reputable estate agent
firms such as ZIMRE Properties Limited. You are already spending a lot of money therefore
paying a bit of money to ensure you are making the right decision is the only sensible thing
to do. You will save yourself a lot of heartaches.’
2. Finding the Right Property
Now that you have a clearly defined budget of how much you have available, you can start
looking at properties available for sale. There are two ways of doing this: –
i. You can register with a particular estate agent or several agents giving them your
budget, preferred area and other features in your prospective property that you are
looking for such as you would want the property to be on an acre stand with a
borehole etc. You then leave your contact details with the agent(s) who in turn will have the task of finding a property that matches your specifications or at least is
close to your preferences. The agent will contact you usually with a list of properties
to view (later on I will highlight what to look out for when viewing a property).
Again a strong word of advice ‘Deal with registered estate agents, keep away from
unregistered agents. One can easily check with the Estate Agents of Council of
Zimbabwe by merely calling them on +263 – 4 – 746356/746400 and asking if the
name of a particular agent is registered with them. This safeguards you and your
money.
Ii The second method is the most obvious and most widely used, and this is by looking
through the classified sections of most of the daily newspapers and going through
the advertised properties within your budget. One can also look at particular estate
agents websites (although most websites I have looked at are not regularly updated
which is disappointing) nevertheless websites are still a good source of property
information. One good website to look at is www.zimclassifieds. Without over
emphasising this point, ‘Deal with reputable and registered estate agents such as
Zimre Properties.
Why deal with agents?
Because estate agents have a good understanding of the property market and the
particular location you will be looking for a property in. They are aware of the day to
day movement in property prices therefore you eliminate the risk of being
overpriced. An agent can also negotiate on your behalf with the seller. A registered
agent is mandated to act professionally on behalf of both the seller and buyer, any
signs of demeanour can result in the agent being deregistered and losing their
license to operate. On the contrary, an unregistered agent may inflate the price in
order to earn more commission since commission is a percentage of the sale price.
In the unlikely event that you are ever defrauded by a registered estate agent and
you lose your money, you can appeal to the Estate Agents Council of Zimbabwe
which through the Estate Agents Compensation Fund after a proven breach by a
registered agent will compensate you and you can recover at least a portion if not
the entire amount.
Iii A third option which is not very popular is to attend public auctions of properties.
These are usually properties that have been foreclosed on by banks or other
creditors. Normally these properties are advertised prior through a daily newspaper
notifying the property, date and place of auction and the advert ordinarily mentions
viewing period.
Iv The last option is private sales where no agent is involved. I highly discourage this
particular option because of the high risk of fraudulent transaction. This option also
requires one to invest a lot of personal time in ensuring the property being sold is
unencumbered and the person selling has the legal mandate to do so for example
the property in question could be subject of a divorce case where the one party is
trying to sell quickly before the other. It could turn out there is a caveat on the title deed prohibiting selling or transfer of the property without the other party’s consent
after you have paid. This is a headache you can avoid by going through an agent who
would (if it’s a good agent) have undertaken such research prior. In the event that
you have to buy privately without going through an estate agent, at least involve a
good and reputable law firm that is registered with the Law Society of Zimbabwe to
undertake the conveyancing before you pay any monies. Although the conveyancing
lawyers are the seller’s choice ensure these are reputable and registered and only
pay money in to the lawyers trust account and not directly to the seller.
In your search of course within your prescribed budget, which you must stick to, it is
prudent to combine options one to three as you look for the property of your
choice.
3. What to Look Out for and How to Spot a Good Property Buy.
The golden rule in spotting a good property buy is ‘simply to avoid a bad one!’ This may
seem a contradiction but this is the best way to get a good property buy. To avoid a bad
property buy; ‘use a reputable and registered estate agent’
What to look out for?
One needs to undertake a thorough research of the intended properties for purchase. This is
done by looking at daily papers, going through websites and going to public auctions as
highlighted above. The second step in your research is to visit each property and view it. As a
personal rule of thumb, I suggest one to view at least ten properties before making a
decision. At each property inspection, take photographs of the property or better still, video
recordings, however this requires permission which should be sought first before making
any recordings. Pictures make a good basis for comparing properties alone without the
agent and assist in keeping memory of viewed properties.
So what should one really look at when viewing a property?
i. Look at the external walls or outside of the house. Here one is looking for structural
cracks. A structural crack is normally a crack that appears on both the outside and
inside of the house following the same fault line. This can usually be traced from a
particular area which is either a tie beam or the foundation of the house. A brief
background knowledge of the area will also assist for example if you are buying a
house in an area such as Queensdale or Parkmeadowlands (south of Harare CBD)
most of the original houses in this area are built of compressed earth (a technology
known back then as ‘no fines’) there are no bricks or mortar joints therefore if one
of these type houses has a structural crack, it is most likely very severe (fortunately
very few of these houses have structural cracks). If you are buying in Old
Marlborough, because of the clay soil type in Marlborough a good number of these
houses are on special foundation known as ‘raft foundation’ this is basically like a
floating platform on which the house is built on therefore a structural crack
emanating from the foundation can be disastrous. A word of advice; it is better to buy a house which has not been painted or refurbished provided this can be factored in the price and do this work on your own. Often times repair works and paint jobs may be done to hide serious property defects which can haunt you later.