Transcription
Hi, my name's Chris. I live in Australia. And today, well, I'm going to announce I've just bought my first home. Just bought my first home. It's a bittersweet moment. I just want to run through in this video what it took for myself to buy a house in Australia. I had to had to build it. Um, and God, just yeah, it's it's bittersweet, guys, because I've kind of grabbed the property ladder. has been pulled up and I just grabbed that bottom rung and just held on for dear life. And I I I know that unfortunately it's it's out of reach for many Australians right now, but I I did what I could to do it. I I just want to run through on this video what I did to get my first house in Australia.
This is we we did a build. It's a three-bedroom build. It's a basic starter home. Um if you can see behind me, I got water tanks. Uh so I'm not town water. I'm on septic as well. I' also got a septic tank out the back as a basic build. And I just want to run through in this video how I got there. Um, so those that are on the edge, just what it could take to also get there yourselves. But mate, you know, fiance, we're we're we're over the moon. We can't believe this has happened. We finally got there after all this time.
So, the first thing I want to talk about in this video is that I couldn't have done this by myself. And that's not bank of mom and dad jumping in or anything like that. um is that it takes two incomes now in Australia to buy a house. So my fiance and myself, we had to combine our incomes. I was checking this morning on my income uh and it was like this year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago on my income alone, I could not I do not have the borrowing capacity at all to to to get a house. And my my fiance's income, she did not have the borrowing capacity by herself to get a home, too. So it took two of us combining our incomes and our incomes combined is just above the median wage uh for two of us. So just over what is it? Median wage is 90,000 a year. Just over 180,000 a year for both of our incomes combined. We're just we're just over that. We just scraped in. So two full-time workers on the median income is what it took us to to get our first home to build our first home in Australia. So our incomes our borrowing capacity just wasn't enough on single incomes. We needed two incomes to be able to get across to to buying our first home in this country.
Uh the second, I guess, realization that we came across was, and this was a hard one for me to swallow cuz I love the Sunshine Coast. Sunshine Coast is where I grew up. It's where for many years I wanted to to spend my life and settle down. Unfortunately, pricing moved too far ahead of us and we couldn't get in on the Sunshine Coast. Uh you know, fair enough. It's a very desirable area. Everyone wants to move to the Sunshine Coast. And it took me a long time to come to terms that the Sunshine Coast or the area that I grew up in, I guess I'll keep it general for many others watching, the area that I grew up in is no longer affordable for me to settle down in. So where my parents were, I cannot afford anymore. So it took some time for me to realize that the Sunshine Coast or the area that I grew up in is not the same as it was 10 years ago. It's not the same as it was 20 years or 30 years ago. Just not the same. It's not the same as I remembered.
So once I came to terms with that, I was reading YouTube comments. Uh so all these times I do these videos about housing and stuff, guys. I ask you for your thoughts and I read the comments through and I read the comments and you know there comments like go west young man. Uh get away from the capital cities, move further out. I read these over and over and I thank you guys for these comments cuz it sunk in and I moved further out. I I said, "You know what? It's not going to work for us here." So, we moved further out. We moved uh about an hour and a half away, get some more land to make get something affordable because the further you move away from the cities, the further you move away from the higher density areas, well, the the cheaper things start to get. Sure, there's less work out in these areas, but you know, you know what's an hour, hour and a half drive in to work, hour, hour and a half drive back from work per day uh to to own a stake in the land, to own a stake in the country. I think it's worth it, I guess.
On the leadup as well. So, before I, you know, built the house and moved into the house, I've only just moved in a week ago, guys, so I'm still unpacking everything. I'm still going through a break lease on the rental that I was in. But I I guess on the leadup to it, um for many years I was sharehousing with four other guys in a small townhouse uh to keep the the rent cost down so I could try to save to get ahead. Uh sometimes it was five other people cuz sometimes one of their girlfriends would move in for a few months and then move out. So four to five people uh share housing with. Uh and then when I met my partner uh when I met Brooke um we've been dating for a few months. We we moved out together and we got our own own place to kind of start settling down route. So, we got our own rental together cuz we needed some space. She was in a share house situation as well and we we just needed that space to to kind of set foundations as a couple. So, we moved out to our own place for 2 and 1/2 years and we just knuckled down and we started to save and we just started to put as much money as we can together. We had the chat. We said, "Let's get a house together. We don't know how we're going to do it yet, but we just got to start saving to get our deposits up." We we had some savings, but between the two of us, we just needed a hell of a lot more. So that kind of ties back that it takes two. So yeah, we both got together and it took two of us working together as a team to start to save and you we were sharing a house together. We're paying the rent together 50/50 all the way through and we just saved and saved. You know, we went we went without the you know a lot of social gatherings, a lot of social meetups. We we skipped all that stuff to just save. So we said we want a future together and we're going to need a house and some land. and I wanted to get some land, enough room for a kid to kick a ball around in the backyard. And I've finally done that. But the two working together, that meant that we both had to hold down full-time jobs. Uh so I held down my full-time job, she held down her full-time job. We've held down our full-time jobs for for many years.
But in addition to that, on the tar end of CO, uh when CO was just lightening up, I started doing a second job. I started Door Dash driving, uh doing food deliveries as a a second thing on top of my full-time job. cuz I saw the writing on the wall. I saw inflation starting to kick up and I said, "Oh god, I got to get ahead of inflation here. I've got to try to keep up with inflation at that point." So, I started working a second job. Uh, and I I put the savings aside from doing door dash driving. I was out two to three times a week uh on nights or afternoons just trying to earn uh extra money. So, I'd do three to four hour shifts to earn an extra $100 uh and I'll put that money aside towards savings. And now guys, if you're interested in a side hustle, you know, Door Dash, great great one to do. Uh, I did it for 3 years straight. I just saved the money aside. Just kept putting the money aside and it's helped towards the deposit for my home. Uh, but I got a link down below in the description to Door Dash. If you want to sign up as a driver, it's free to sign up. Click the link, check it out, try it out in your area. Uh, it's not a roster or anything like that. You just get the app and you sign in, sign out whenever you want to work. Uh, no one forces you to work or anything like that. if you don't feel like it, you just you just don't do it. But I did it for 3 years and that helped towards the savings.
In addition, I've been on YouTube for 4 and 1/2 years now. So the YouTube income that I've made, uh, it's not as much as people think, guys. Uh, my first 3 years on YouTube, I was doing delivery driver content, how to be a Door Dash driver, how to drive on Uber Eats, showing that off. If you click on my profile and then scroll all the way down to the bottom, uh, you'll see some of the old Door Dash videos and you can watch them. I do ride alongs. strap a GoPro to my head and show what it's like to drive on Door Dash as a side hustle. I never recommend it for full-time work. Only it's just a uh a part-time or casual thing to just log in when you want to make some extra money. Uh but yeah, I did geek uh gig driving or gig tubing as they called it for 3 years showing what it's like. Uh and then I switched across to the I guess the more current content I've been doing for 18 months. Whereas upwards pressure on the government. I want the government to do better. um you know pushing out uh putting Australians first. Okay. So I I've done a shift across there cuz I didn't like the direction this country was heading. I was doing all the right things. I was struggling. I couldn't get ahead uh to where housing was going. Housing was the biggest thing. Done it. Done it now. Just scraped in. But it's not getting easy, guys. It's getting worse. I've grabbed that bottom rung of the letter. I've grabbed the bottom rung of the letter and I I'm holding on for dear life. like this isn't this isn't winning the lottery, guys. I've got a $600,000 mortgage now to keep paying.
And I guess in realism, when you look at the $600,000 mortgage um on the interest rates they are today, between the mortgage repayments, rates, and insurance that I've got to pay on the house, uh it's 40% more than I was paying rent. And when I look at just the interest alone, the interest alone is more than what I was paying on rent back in a rental place. So, it's a lot more. My my I guess to keep a roof over my head, it's increased by 40%. Just to get into a home in this country. So, it's a lot more expensive. And it's a lot more expensive than I thought. And the more the RBA keeps raising up interest rates, the more inflation keeps going up, the harder the harder this gets for me to keep. Uh, currently the repayments going to be over over a,000 a week. I think it's close to 1,100 a week between the bank, between insurance, and between rates. And it's going to be like that for the next 30 years. So, the the the pressure is on. I've got to maintain working. I got to stay on top of my game for the next 30 years to to pay this off.
Uh on a positive though, I've got two dogs. Let's have a look at them. Hazel Chester, what you doing? Yeah. Living the life. You living the tree? What you doing, mate? What you doing? Hey, buddy. Yeah. What are you doing, Hazel? What's that? Hello. Say hello. They got two silky terriers. Uh terriers. Hazel and Chester. And they love it. We used to have a 300 300 square meter block back on the sunny coast as a rental. And the house took up most of it. So there wasn't much room in the backyard for run around. Now they I got an acre. So I got the Australian dream. I got the acre. Oh, quarter acre was the Australian dream. And God, I'm stoked, mate. I'm I'm over the moon.
So, I guess looking at financials, we did $110,000 of deposit. That was our combined life savings put all towards the deposit for the house. Did we get that 5% first home owner guarantee the government's doing? No, we did not do that. Um, we signed our deposit on the land and deposit on the builder before that came into place. Uh, so we did not get our 5% guarantee. So, we had to pay about I think it was about $10,000 LMI, lenders mortgage insurance. Uh, but we did get the $30,000 first birth homeowners grant in Queensland, which went on top of that $110,000 deposit that we had. So, $140,000 all up is what we put down towards the house to to get the house building.
So, we put the deposits down on the land uh and also on the builder uh well in advance before the land had titled or anything like that. Uh just to be honest, like we just we just needed to do something. I just needed to do something to try to put something in place for my future. So, I I took a risk. I said, " $1,000 on this piece of land as a deposit. If the developer goes bust or disappears or something like that, so be it. It's $1,000." But at least I tried at least I tried to do something. And then with the the builder as well, uh by I think it was a $5,000 deposit we did um last year and that was to lock the prices in and the prices just kept going up every you know 2 or 3 months on the build. So we locked the prices in early and we waited we waited months um for the the council to to title the land. I don't count my chickens before they hatched. That's why I didn't talk on YouTube about putting a deposit down or on the land or on the build or anything like that cuz things could have gone wrong. And god would I I've looked like a goose. So I didn't I didn't want to say anything earlier. I wanted to wait for my the eggs to hatch to make sure I actually had a chicken. And yeah, I got a chicken and a half here, guys. If that's a saying, I don't know. But I'm happy. My partner's happy. When we got the keys on keys day, um my fiance, she she cried. She was so happy. Um I was I was shell shocked. I couldn't believe it happened. But mate, we we we did it. And yeah, we we got the Australian dream.
I guess you know, a tip if someone's on the edge or anything like that and you know it's land, you're buying land and you're going to build um do the deposits down, wait it out. um it'll give you a couple of months to to get the rest of your finances in order to start saving up more to really lock in. Uh, you know, I had to do a break lease and stuff like that and the moving cost and that's that's all still in progress right now. So there was extra money on top of, you know, the house. So it was all things we had to plan for and we had to plan for for months but we had to save for years and it was our life savings depleted to get the deposit to buy the house but it only titled at the end of last year around mid November and then slab only started going down around January. So uh it took 6 monthsish to build. A lot of the time was waiting for the council to to do their bit on the land. But mate we we are happy. You guys happy? Chester, you happy, mate? Yeah. Look at the lanch you got. Hazel, you happy? Yeah. Look at them go. These two go. They just love it. They love it. So happy. I'm so happy I could provide this for my dogs. They they just love it. They're over the moon.
But, you know, it's a happy straight right now. We We got there, but it's not the end of the fight or anything like that. Uh, as I said, over $1,000, $1,100 a week for the next 30 years. I got to keep on top of that to keep going. And you know, inflation is going to keep putting pushing them rates up, going to keep pushing that insurance up. There's more interest rate rises. That makes it harder again. Uh, so I'm in that boat now. I've moved from the the one-third of Australians renting to the one-third of Australians getting absolutely slaughtered by mortgage repayments, by interest rates, by debt. But I moved into that that third bucket. And then the other third of the bucket is people who own their homes outright. Uh, so yeah, I'm just moving from one bucket to the next bucket. But m, I'm stoked. Got an acre. Got an acre. Got a view from the acre as well. Got enough enough land. Got enough yard for a kid one day or a future kid to kick a soccer ball around, to kick a footy around, maybe play some cricket, whatever we want to do. We can hit a ball, kick a ball around. It's great, mate. I I caught the Australian dream. I made it. I did it. I I can't I I can't describe it. Um, it's Yeah, anyone else who's bought their first home, how how do you just feel? I'm overwhelmed by it. But I did it. I did it. I got there. And it's bittersweet as well, guys, cuz I know that even though I've done it, millions, 10 million other Australians maybe, are losing this opportunity. They're losing this this this feeling that I've got. This this overwhelming joy that I have of owning something to call mine, a stake in the land, a stake in my own country, a place for my future, a place to raise my kids, to raise my family. Done it. I'm there. But [ __ ] it's bittersweet knowing that others aren't going to feel this.
So, I guess what it took and I'll just run through the dot points. Takes two. Okay. Okay. It took me finding a partner, uh, finding someone to marry. Took that for us to both combine to work together towards getting a dream. Took two two full-time incomes in Australia to get this. The second, it took the realization that the place that I grew up in is not the same as it was 10 years ago. It's completely changed. And it's to move out further to to understand what we could afford uh, within our incomes. So, we moved out further. We moved uh hour hour and a half further away from where we used to where we used to live. So it took that understanding as well. And then it took the work sacrifice. So holding down them full-time jobs at all costs. Uh me working them second jobs doing delivery driving. There's some nights, mate, I didn't want to go out door dash driving. I didn't want to go out Uber Eidge driving, but I did. And I always said to myself, I was like, "Okay, would I rather watch a movie on Netflix or go out there and earn an extra $50? And how many times can I skip watching a movie to earn an extra $50? And that's what I do. I go log into Door Dash. And once again, I'll put that link down below in the description if you want to earn some extra money. Door Dash is an easy way to get started with it. I did it. I did it. And it's helped me towards the deposit for my first home.
Uh other than that, we just had to hone in. Uh we had to sacrifice a lot of social outings. Um weekend getaways. We we we haven't done a weekend getaway. We did do uh two holidays. Um, but not the weekend getaways, not all the social outings, not all the social dinners. We missed out on friends birthdays. Um, I haven't been to a pub. They get sloshed and slaughtered with the boys. I haven't done that since October 2022. Uh, we've been to the cinemas. I think we we go once a year to the cinemas now. And I wait for uh the bank to to put up like discount deals and I can get like 50% off movie tickets. We go once a year to go watch a movie at the cinemas. So, it's that kind of stuff. We just tried to cut back as much as we could. We didn't do the extra big buys. Didn't do the extra spending. Granted, yeah, we did two holidays. Uh, but that second holiday that we did, that's actually I did one holiday with my family and then after I met Brooke, uh, we did our first overseas holiday together. That was kind of locking us in as a couple together. It's like we got an experience together. So, it was an investment to the future of us doing that. So to to build like a lifelong experience and we went to Japan and we loved it. It was fantastic over there and the the AUD was really strong against the yen back then. So we got really good value for our for our for our back. But aside from that, everything else just went into saving. Just went into saving. We just went without everything else. We just sat at home on the weekends. Um and that was it. sat home for the weekends for for two and a half years and saved and didn't didn't spend the money and to to get to the dream of this.
Now to you guys, everyone who's followed me and supported me on YouTube over the years, I just want you to know thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you so much for watching. To be clear, this is not the end of the journey. Not by a long shot. I've got a stake in this country now. I've got a stake a land. I'm going to fight for this land. I want others in this country to have that feeling that I had buying their first home. I want others to to to get, how do you put it, to get some freedom back into their lives, to not be slaved down from this cost of living crisis that we're in. I want the country to be better. I want the people of Australia to have a better go, to have a fairer go than what's happening right now. I want I want I want Australians to have what I have to to feel what I feel when I got this. I want Australians to have a future in this country. I want them to all to feel they've got a stake in the land, a stake in their future in this country. That's what I'm going to fight for. I'm going to fight against this ridiculous ridiculousness happening of cost of living. The government absolutely blowing every dollar they get in. They're spending like drunken sailors. Inflation. We got to got to get that back under control, don't we? Interest rates just keep going up. They're gutting us. Aside from that, I want you to be able to feed your kids in the morning. I want to be able to feed my kids in the morning. I want I want things to get affordable. I want Australia to get back to what Australia used to be, the Australian dream. You have that social contract. You work hard. You get a house. You live a good life. Your kids live a good life. You put your kids through school. Your kids are happy. I want that back. That's what I'm fighting for. That's what I'm doing everything in my life to do right now. And I want to keep advocating for this stuff. I want to make I want to bring that back. Hate to say the slogan, but make Australia great again. Make it what it used to be. That's what I want to fight for. So, I'm on that fight. I'm on that path. I'm on that journey right now myself. And I want to bring everyone else along with me. And we're going to do this. Going to make Australia great again. We're going to put Australia first. Anyway, guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Really enjoyed it. Thanks everyone for supporting me on this journey. Thanks for watching. It's not the end. This is the start of the fight. We're going to make Australia great again. Sorry for using that slogan, but I don't I'm lost for words right now. I'm overwhelmed. I've got my first bloody house. This is great. All right, guys. Thanks so much and I'll see you in the next.