Guide to Buying your First Home

5 INTRODUCTION now experienced massive growth in prices and most if not all these people would have sold and shifted to their dream home. The point I am making here is that they got started with home ownership by buying what they could afford. They did not get locked out of the market forever. All of these people would now have financial security as they move towards retirement age. They would now be thinking how clever they were back in the early 1980s when they made that very difficult decision to commit to home ownership. It’s not where you start – it’s where you finish that counts. Prices Are Currently Affordable We often hear people say that the prices are no longer affordable, things were so much cheaper years ago and it was easy to buy back then. Prices were cheaper years ago but no more affordable than today. Let’s look back in time. I bought my first home when I was 21 years of age and the year was 1979, I paid $13,000 for a small two bedroom, two storey townhouse with a single garage South East of Melbourne in Springvale South. I was then earning around $100 per week and, I cannot recall receiving any first home buyer grants or assistance from the government. Mortgage interest rates averaged 11.2% then and there was a shortage of money for borrowing, so securing a loan was difficult. It was very challenging buying a home in 1979, but there seemed to be more focus on purchasing a home of your own when I was growing up and we all believed it was achievable. Everyone I knew was purchasing their first home; it was just what you did, you left school, got a job and saved for a home of your own. The belief today is very different. Most people believe buying a first home is out of reach and simply unachievable, this is not the case. I lived in that first home for only a few years before upgrading to a larger home further out in a brand-new suburb known as Rowville. Rowville was just getting started and there were no shops or facilities nearby. Again, I only lived there for a few years before selling again and moving to something larger. Each time I sold I made money, plus I had paid small amounts off my mortgage and got closer to my dream home. I now live in a home that I consider to be my dream home