Helping Your Child Get onto the Property Ladder

Once you become a parent, your main job is to keep your child safe, healthy and happy. And no matter how old you and your offspring get, you’ll always want what’s best for them and try to help them in any way possible. It’s no wonder then that many parents, and even grandparents, are nowadays very much involved in their child’s first property purchase. And since most of them are wondering how they can help and how much they should chip in, here are some ideas.

Give them your savings

Most of us have some money stashed away somewhere for a rainy day. In case you’ve been saving for a long time, you might have a significant amount of money set aside for anything from an emergency to buying a weekend home once you retire. However, if you see that your child is struggling with collecting the deposit money for their first property, you might want to step up and give them the money they need. You have a few options in this case. The first one is to simply give them as much money as you can so that their deposit is bigger. The larger the deposit they can put down, the better deal they can get with their bank, as far as loans are concerned. Another option is to give them an amount of your choice and have them work for the rest, even if you have enough money to buy the whole property. This way, you get to help them financially while still making them take enough responsibility to fully appreciate their home.

Downsize

When your child moves out of their childhood home and decides to buy their own, you’ll end up with some spare rooms in your house or flat. The opportunity that presents itself here is that you sell your home, buy a smaller one and give your child the difference in the price. The best time to do this is when you retire, which is a great time to consider high-standard yet affordable Mark Moran Vaucluse retirement homes , where you can spend your golden age happily and carefreely, knowing your child has a nice place to live as well. If you’re worried or hesitant, you can choose a retirement community which offers a guarantee to buy the apartment or suite back from, or offer others similar solutions for you if necessary.

Help them with the mortgage

Helping your child with cash you have at hand isn’t the only option. For example, you can put a mortgage on your own home and simply pass along the money released to them. You can guarantee their loan, which could mean all the difference to your child since it would allow them to get a higher sum than they would without you. Similarly, a first-time buyer could get a loan for most or the whole value of the property they are buying if the mortgage is guaranteed through a charge of your home or through a savings account deposit you put down in the same bank. For other related ways to be of assistance, ask your personal banker for information.

Lend them the money

Finally, if you want to provide financial support for your child’s first property purchase but don’t want to simply hand them the money, you can always loan it to them. The way they return it is up to you, so create a contract to either have them give it back with no interest, or charge them a certain amount of interest monthly, but make sure the interest rate is lower than the ones that banks offer them, since it wouldn’t actually be helpful otherwise.

The most important thing is that you have a desire to help your child settle down in a new home. And where there’s a will, there’s a way to back your child up, and you’ll find it easily.