PHOTO: FIONA GOODALL “Our savings could not grow at the rate house prices were increasing.”
OPINION: My partner and I bought a house in Auckland last week.
We are 25 and 23. We earn over $130,000 a year between us and have no debt, and no children.
We spent months looking for a home, and felt so deflated due to how inflated the house prices are. We would look at the sales history of houses we were interested in, seeing some had risen tens-of-thousands in just a matter of months.
In order to increase our deposit (the majority of which came from KiwiSaver), we applied for the Housing New Zealand HomeStart Grant of $10,000. One of the conditions is that applicants need to buy an older house in Auckland for $600,000 or less, or $650,000 or less for a new build. As you can imagine our options were limited as the average house price in Auckland is currently $862,000, and the KiwiBuild homes on offer were as good as a shoe box.
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