The Search for a Bank Loan and Lawyer
My long time friend from secondary school days who had bought an EC in 2004 had asked me then to buy one together with him and his colleague back then. But I had reservations about my ability to finance the purchase then and the financial burden it will have on my and my wife. Those reservations have eased somewhat, so that is why we committed to buy now.
I had asked him about what bank he took his loan from and he asked about my purchase price and which EC i bought. I guess it is a tribute to the length of our friendship that he did not once said “I told you so” to buy EC then and now the prices have almost doubled.
Now that I am clearer about what type of loan and what we should do after TOP, we know that we should look for a bank that offers fixed rates after TOP to that we can have some sort of protection against rising interest rates. Which my good friend is already protected by as his loan is on fixed rates.
So we consider a few and decided to take up ANZ in the end. There may be better initial rates, but we are more concerned that the +0.95% will last for the entire duration of the loan. Even if we should decide not to take up the fixed loan in the end.
The search for a law firm to represent us was more straightforward as there was a law firm representative there at the show flat and after a search online to check if there was any negative reviews about them turn up nothing, we were reassured and decided to use them as their services for the price quote was nett and included all the fees.
The bank was super fast and was ready with the bank offer in four working days. Guess that us having our credit card with them and our AIP process earlier with other banks may have hasten the approval process.
The funds that we needed for the 5% and 15% were earmarked by us selling our unit trust and shares over the May and June period almost three months earlier. Our CPF funds may not be able to pay the entire 15% as we are still servicing our HDB loan so we will have to foot cash for part of the 15% and also for the stamp fees and the legal fees.
However, as mentioned in earlier post, our remaining investments remains on track for our retirement target.
In fact, without our earlier investments using CPF and cash, it is doubtful that we will even be in the position to consider buying an EC. We are definitely not highly paid or even in the bracket of the upper middle income. So for us, investing has made it possible for us to be able to buy this EC.
Post a Comment