As a parent, you want the best for our children, and that means helping them make responsible life choices and plan for a secure future.<\/p>\n
One of the easiest ways to do this is to encourage sound, long term investments like property, says Rawson Property.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely pays to become a property owner as early on in life as possible,\u201d said Bill Rawson, chairman of the Rawson Property Group, \u201cbut trying to get a bond on a starter salary \u2013 even in a high-paying career \u2013 can be difficult to do.<\/p>\n
“A sectional title unit in a good area with good growth prospects can easily cost R1 million and more \u2013 that\u2019s nearly R10,000 a month in bond payments, assuming you can secure a 100% loan, which is extremely rare these days.\u201d<\/p>\n
To qualify for a bond of that size, your child would need to be earning around R35,000 per month. Needless to say, not many recent graduates have that many zeros on their payslip, but that doesn\u2019t mean property is out of their reach \u2013 at least, not with a little help from you.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are two main ways parents can help their children become property owners at an earlier age,\u201d said Rawson. \u201cThe first is to sign as surety for your child\u2019s bond. This can help them qualify for a much larger bond than they otherwise would have been able to access, as their income will be added, but it does come with a lot of risk, which isn\u2019t ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n
If high risk doesn’t suit, Rawson points to the less risky option of a parent-to-child loan.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bond may be the cheapest type of formal financing available to most people, but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s inexpensive \u2013 especially these days with interest rates on the rise,\u201d said Rawson.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a parent, if you have access to capital, loaning some money to your child to put towards their property at lower interest rate can go a long way towards increasing the affordability of their investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
To illustrate his point, Rawson extrapolates from a hypothetical R1 million property. \u201cWith a 100% bond at 10.5% interest, repayments on a R1 million home would currently be around R9983.80 per month,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf your child can immediately deposit R500,000 into their bond account, borrowed from you, those repayments drop to R4991.90 per month. Of course, they\u2019ll still need to pay you back, at around R3299.78 per month assuming a 5% interest rate over the same length of time as their existing bond.<\/p>\n
“In total, that means their payments add up to R8291.68 per month, or R1692.12 less than they would have paid without your assistance. That can save them as much as R400 000 over the lifetime of their loan.\u201d<\/p>\n
To further protect yourself, and your child, Rawson recommends drawing up a loan agreement allowing you to take over the property should your child fall into serious arrears on their repayments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis gives you the opportunity to rescue the investment in an emergency, rather than see it repossessed by the bank,\u201d Rawson said.<\/p>\n
How to pick the best investment property<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n