The importance of goal setting to help achieve your dreams
I’m writing this blog to show that with the right mindset, planning and having the right people to assist and guide you, nothing is impossible including buying your first home.
For anyone who has ever wanted to be a firefighter and gone through the application process, they will know it is incredibly hard and highly competitive. It is not something you can take lightly, and you need to set certain goals to help you succeed at each stage of the process.
Why is a mortgage and finance broker talking about becoming a firefighter you ask? Well, in another life I was a career firefighter with the CFA and believe that the challenges of getting accepted into the CFA academy are not dissimilar to those when buying your first home.
It may seem impossible when you first decide to buy your first home, but nothing is impossible if you have the right attitude and engage the right people, and that is exactly how I got through each stage of the recruitment process and ultimately selected to go into the CFA academy.
Working back from the end goal
Once I had decided that becoming a career firefighter was what I wanted to do, I had to then work out exactly what was required at each step of the process and work back from there. I couldn’t expect to just rock up and hope for the best as that was never going to help me achieve my goal.
Imagine yourself walking into a house, falling in love with it and then putting in an offer only to have everything fall apart because you didn’t have enough savings or could not get the loan amount required to complete the purchase.
Before you can even consider going and buying a home you need to understand and plan for the following:
What your borrowing capacity is based on your current income/s
What lenders you have available to you based on your circumstances and their lending policies
How much deposit you need based on the value of the house you think you can afford or would like to be able to afford
If you are eligible for any government incentives such as the First Home Buyers Grant
Engaging the experts
The different stages of the application process meant that I had to undertake an aptitude test, run 9.6 on a beep test and complete a physical challenge. This was completely out of my comfort zone and capability at the time I decided to join because I had spent a lot of my working life behind a desk and didn’t really go to a gym or even exercise that much. I knew that if I was going to be successful at each stage, I would have to engage people who were experts or knowledgeable in these different areas. For the physical challenge I hired a personal trainer who focused on specific areas of training to help me get strong.
Engaging experts to help you buy your first home is no different.
Here at Cherry Lending & Finance I can help you understand how much you need to save, what lending options are available to you based on your unique circumstances, and can advise on your borrowing capacity well before you even decide to head out and look for your first home. I can even help you put a savings plan in place to help achieve your goal – because a goal without a plan is just a wish.
