Zach and Alora have wanted to buy a house ever since they started working full time more than 4 years ago.
Knuckling down while they lived at home, they managed to save $44,000 for a deposit and recently bought their dream home in Buttaba at the age of just 20 and 21.
“We did have to sacrifice things but it’s just about being smart with your money and looking for the cheaper option of everything. Instead of going on big trips we just did weekends away camping, or we’d have friends around instead of going out.” Alora said.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the young couple. While staying home during the pandemic helped them to save, it also caused a spike in the property market.
In the end, Alora said it was a combination of being in the right place at the right time with the right people that helped them secure their 3 bedroom renovated home, just streets away from where they both grew up in Lake Macquarie.
“Putting the deposit down that day was the only way we secured it. Luckily, we had pre-approval in place and had just been extending it, so we were ready to go.”
Already Newcastle Permanent customers, Zach and Alora secured their loan with the help of a mobile lender.
“We had no idea what we were doing when we first started. We just called Newcastle Permanent and Robyn was the one who called us back and translated the whole process for us,” Alora said.
“She was amazing, especially at the end when we’d paid our holding deposit and only had a few days to get everything done. Zach and I were both working full time so it was really hard to try and sort out things from the real estate to the solicitors, but Rob stepped in for us to line everything up and would text me updates of what was happening.
“She was just really helpful and never talked down to us or made us feel like we didn’t know what we were doing.”
Zach and Alora moved into their house in March along with their three-month-old kitten, Bonnie, and have enjoyed every minute of it.
“Coming home to each other and having the freedom to do our own thing is the best. It was also so nice to be able to delete the real estate app off our phones.”