When we asked our Home Smart social media audience to tell us what the most important factor in the search for a home is, their response was almost unanimous: location, location, location! This makes perfect sense because it is the one thing you cannot change. When you buy a home, you buy into the neighbourhood for as long as you live there. Here is how you can choose the right one for you:

Determine your budget

It goes without saying that the value of a property is largely determined by where it is located so you will need to have to have a larger budget to get into certain communities that are highly developed and well-established. For this reason, the cost of acquiring a home in the North-western parts of Trinidad is usually higher than in other areas of the country. Finding out how much you are pre-qualified to borrow for a home purchase would give you an idea of your overall budget. You can use this amount to search for properties that cost within a range that you can afford.

Property Search

Once you have determined your budget, you may need to adjust the location and type of homes you are looking for. It may mean considering properties that are in an entirely different area than you would have originally planned.

You would probably also need to explore properties other than single-family detached homes which tend to be more costly to acquire and maintain. Condominiums, townhouses and granny suites (a self-contained extension to an existing home) are all viable alternatives to think about if you are restricted by your budget.

Best Fit

Once you have identified a few communities that you are interested in, you’ll need to evaluate them by determining how well they fit into your current or future needs. For obvious reasons, homes that are closer to where you or your spouse works would be ideal but if that’s not possible, easy access to main roads or highways could be an option. If you have school-aged children, proximity to schools and after-school programmes would also be important to you.

Don’t forget recreation; you will want to find an area that is close to parks, shopping malls, restaurants etc. depending on your hobbies. It is also worth mentioning that even if an area does not currently tick all the boxes, there may be potential for development over the years. As we mentioned earlier, you will be living at this address for years to come so it would make sense to buy into an up-and-coming neighbourhood when the prices are more affordable now and see the value of your home increase as new developments and improvements are made over time.