Hi Guys
I have taken a copy of Rob's story from his original thread without all the other comments and placed it here in the Library.
Please no comments - just read and enjoy.
This is the link to the originally thread: http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=10813
I have taken a copy of Rob's story from his original thread without all the other comments and placed it here in the Library.
Please no comments - just read and enjoy.
This is the link to the originally thread: http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=10813
Episode One
No Regrets - From day-job to this.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the request of Fritz from this thread http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=10746,
and seeing I have been lurking around here for a while I might as well let you know a bit more about me at the same time.
I am currently 27, married and living the life that I choose to live with the intention of being financially free by the age of 30. This was a goal set at the age of 25, so will be a real challenge!
This is no super "I made 1 million dollars in 2 years" story or anything, it is merely a summary of the last few years of my life and the defining events that have got me to where I am today...
I followed what I guess some may call a standard path for people my age.....finished school (somewhat reluctantly) and then went off to Otago University, almost randomly picking a degree to do while not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life.
In the final year of my degree I went through a few job interviews and landed a pretty good job for a big name firm in Wellington.
My girlfriend and I put all of our belongings into a trailer and loaded up the car and drove up to our new life in the 'real world' in Wellington.
Not knowing jack about Wellington when we got there was quite bewildering, and after looking at a few places for rent we fell in love with a 19th century cottage in Thorndon. This was awesome, I could walk to work, and when my GF got a job she would be able to as well.
The rent was rather high at $350 per week, but the location was great, and my salary was a hang of a lot compared to being a poor student, so we went ahead with it.
I have always been right into my cars, and now that I had this big career with a good salary I decided to buy the car that I had been eyeing up for years.
I will digress a little here....
anyone who knows me well will agree that I am a goals orientated person, and when I get an idea in my head I do not stop until I get the desired result...this is both good and bad...ask my wife
....but back to the point
while at university I saw this car in a carpark and said to my father, when I finish uni I am going to get one of those! So I did.....it was $20k and I hadnt saved any money, so traded in my car for 1.5k and finaced the rest....."its only $540 per month, but that is ok, I have a career now, I will have plenty of money left over."
We continued living in Thorndon for about a year, my girlfriend found a job and while we were not living the high life, we were comfortable.
I have always been a hard worker and being somewhat a perfectionist helped me move up the
ladder quickly, which brought in more $$$.
To this day when I look back at the money I made I cannot figure for the life of me what happened to it, I certainly didnt save any of it.
Then one day I picked up the property press and thought "I wonder what houses cost in wellington" had a squiz around central wellington - realised pretty fast that that was very expensive.
So I started looking at the lower hutt section. A really nice house jumped out at me, and after a quick calculation I discovered that the mortgage payment was just a little less than the rent we were paying.
With a big smile I came home and told Jane all about how we could afford our own house. I played around with some more figures and then went and had a look at the house. Needless to say we both really liked it, so ummed and ahhhed for a while and then put in an offer. Subject to finance of course.
Boy did we learn a few lessons through this experience:
1) Real Estate Agents can be very difficult to deal with, especially when they sense naivity....
2) Banks have no logic whatsoever, and if you dont fit into their calculations, then that is that.
I have just read Monid's story, and had exactly the same experience as them. We never missed a rent payment, had a good credit history, and a good income....but we didnt fit their calculators....even though our current rent was more than the repayment!!
After being rejected (very quickly) by our current bank, I thought I would try a mortgage broker. We sat down and within a few minutes we were laughed out of his office with a come back in a few years statement made in between his laughs.
This did the opposite of put me off, and using my trait described above I 'focused' on getting us into our first
house.
No Regrets - From day-job to this.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the request of Fritz from this thread http://www.propertytalk.com/forum/sh...ad.php?t=10746,
and seeing I have been lurking around here for a while I might as well let you know a bit more about me at the same time.
I am currently 27, married and living the life that I choose to live with the intention of being financially free by the age of 30. This was a goal set at the age of 25, so will be a real challenge!
This is no super "I made 1 million dollars in 2 years" story or anything, it is merely a summary of the last few years of my life and the defining events that have got me to where I am today...
I followed what I guess some may call a standard path for people my age.....finished school (somewhat reluctantly) and then went off to Otago University, almost randomly picking a degree to do while not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life.
In the final year of my degree I went through a few job interviews and landed a pretty good job for a big name firm in Wellington.
My girlfriend and I put all of our belongings into a trailer and loaded up the car and drove up to our new life in the 'real world' in Wellington.
Not knowing jack about Wellington when we got there was quite bewildering, and after looking at a few places for rent we fell in love with a 19th century cottage in Thorndon. This was awesome, I could walk to work, and when my GF got a job she would be able to as well.
The rent was rather high at $350 per week, but the location was great, and my salary was a hang of a lot compared to being a poor student, so we went ahead with it.
I have always been right into my cars, and now that I had this big career with a good salary I decided to buy the car that I had been eyeing up for years.
I will digress a little here....
anyone who knows me well will agree that I am a goals orientated person, and when I get an idea in my head I do not stop until I get the desired result...this is both good and bad...ask my wife
....but back to the point
while at university I saw this car in a carpark and said to my father, when I finish uni I am going to get one of those! So I did.....it was $20k and I hadnt saved any money, so traded in my car for 1.5k and finaced the rest....."its only $540 per month, but that is ok, I have a career now, I will have plenty of money left over."
We continued living in Thorndon for about a year, my girlfriend found a job and while we were not living the high life, we were comfortable.
I have always been a hard worker and being somewhat a perfectionist helped me move up the
ladder quickly, which brought in more $$$.
To this day when I look back at the money I made I cannot figure for the life of me what happened to it, I certainly didnt save any of it.
Then one day I picked up the property press and thought "I wonder what houses cost in wellington" had a squiz around central wellington - realised pretty fast that that was very expensive.
So I started looking at the lower hutt section. A really nice house jumped out at me, and after a quick calculation I discovered that the mortgage payment was just a little less than the rent we were paying.
With a big smile I came home and told Jane all about how we could afford our own house. I played around with some more figures and then went and had a look at the house. Needless to say we both really liked it, so ummed and ahhhed for a while and then put in an offer. Subject to finance of course.
Boy did we learn a few lessons through this experience:
1) Real Estate Agents can be very difficult to deal with, especially when they sense naivity....
2) Banks have no logic whatsoever, and if you dont fit into their calculations, then that is that.
I have just read Monid's story, and had exactly the same experience as them. We never missed a rent payment, had a good credit history, and a good income....but we didnt fit their calculators....even though our current rent was more than the repayment!!
After being rejected (very quickly) by our current bank, I thought I would try a mortgage broker. We sat down and within a few minutes we were laughed out of his office with a come back in a few years statement made in between his laughs.
This did the opposite of put me off, and using my trait described above I 'focused' on getting us into our first
house.
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