Nik Jarvie-Waldrom and her boyfriend knew they wanted to buy their own home but didn't know much about how it make it happen.
Photo: Meg Howie
I’d never thought much about being a home owner. It didn’t seem like a realistic possibility. I studied arts. When I finished studying I continued to live like a struggling student while I worked jobs around my creative pursuits.
My boyfriend of five years has a steadier career, as an engineer, and has long thought about buying a house. After a few years of renting together we started talking more seriously about whether a mortgage was financially manageable considering our combined income.
Like many people who have been flatting for years, we slowly grew less patient with the limitations of renting – putting up with other people’s habits, living in poorly insulated houses, and watching our hard earned dollars line someone else’s pockets.
We started researching the housing market and letting our imaginations run away a little bit. What could we afford? How many years would we need to stretch a mortgage across if we had any chance of maintaining the required payments?
READ: Can you afford a home of your own?
With meagre savings and an unexpected sum of accessible Kiwisaver funds, we launched ourselves into the world of first home buyers – a world full of open homes, property investors, real estate agents, solicitors, mortgage brokers and building inspectors. The search for a house was confusing, tense and often disappointing, but we made it through, into our very own first home.
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