Young Couple Proves Homeownership Is Possible Despite Initial Doubts

Stepping onto the property ladder feels impossible for many young New Zealanders, but Ryan Bilby's journey proves otherwise. A bakery manager at Ben's Buns in Paraparaumu Beach, Ryan recently purchased his first home with partner Crystal despite believing they weren't financially ready.

With an 18% deposit, concerns about past credit issues, and no substantial parental support, Ryan initially dismissed homeownership as unattainable. The turning point came when rental costs kept climbing and finding pet-friendly accommodation became increasingly difficult. Their leap of faith revealed surprising truths – Ryan's credit history was better than expected, their deposit was competitive, and their debt-free status positioned them well with lenders.

The house-hunting process proved eye-opening. Ryan and Crystal viewed approximately 30 properties, often competing with dozens of other potential buyers at open homes. They navigated the disappointment of withdrawing an offer after a building inspection revealed asbestos and roofing issues, teaching them valuable lessons about patience and due diligence. Ryan shares golden advice for fellow first-home seekers, particularly about keeping your maximum budget confidential from eager real estate agents.

Most encouraging is Ryan's revelation that homeownership hasn't ended their ability to enjoy life. While they're saving at a slower rate than before, they still maintain lifestyle pleasures like weekend getaways while building equity in their property. Already planning their next steps on the property ladder, they're strategically paying down their mortgage with future investments in mind.

Ready to discover whether homeownership might be closer than you think? Ryan's parting wisdom is refreshingly simple: "Get out there, get saving, and get it done. Get on the ladder." His journey from doubt to doorstep might just be the inspiration you need to start your own.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Ryan: From Bakery to Buyer
• 3:44 Challenging Assumptions: 18% Deposit Journey
• 5:54 Application Process and House Hunting
• 10:48 Open Home Realities and Deal-Breakers
• 13:40 Getting Unconditional and Future Plans
• 17:22 Life After Purchase: Budgeting Success

Transcript

Meet Ryan: From Bakery to Buyer

Speaker 1 0:10

Hello and welcome back to that Home Loan Hub Zibuni Salimova, here with you, with Ryan Bilby.

Speaker 2 0:16

Hello, ryan Hiya how are we doing?

Speaker 1 0:19

Good. Today we're going to dive into your first home buying journey and all the experiences that you had. Thank you so much for coming in today, Ryan.

Speaker 2 0:30

No worries.

Speaker 1 0:32

So, since the experience is so new and fresh, do you just want to tell us who you are, what you do, and we'll go from there?

Speaker 2 0:38

Yep, so my name is Ryan Bilby. I'm a bakery manager at Ben's Buns in Paraparumu Beach and, yeah, so I'm a baker for a living. Don't do much else apart from golf and bake.

Speaker 1 0:52

That's a perfect combo. For those that haven't listened to the episode I did with Ben, there's actually one, so go back and listen to that. So Ben is your boss and you were looking to buy a house. When did you start looking to buy a house?

Speaker 2 1:03

I probably started looking to buy a house Maybe six to nine months ago, sort of got the idea in our heads and didn't think we were in the right position To be able to do it.

Speaker 1 1:13

Why did you think so?

Speaker 2 1:16

Basically, five years ago had not a scratch of savings or any ambition to buy a house. And then the rental market is just going up and up and up. And then we have pets. Trying to find a rental with pets is such a hassle so we thought why not try?

Speaker 1 1:36

Yeah, so you've got a partner? Yep, and she works for she works for remedy social club yes, and I know her boss as well, so that was a really interesting situation where both of your bosses were telling you to go and see me.

Speaker 2 1:52

So it was. It was uh interesting, but, um, probably the best thing I've ever done.

Speaker 1 1:58

Oh, thank you, ryan, but let's, let's go back a step. So you thought it's not possible because you didn't have enough savings or deposit. Yep, yeah, how much deposit did you have?

Speaker 1 2:09

just roughly in percentages at that time, maybe 18, 18 yeah, okay, which is still really good compared to a lot of other buyers that we deal with, because sometimes, you know, we deal with buyers that only have five percent or ten percent. So 18 is actually quite a strong position, but you thought it's not possible with 18, yeah, and this is why we're sitting here, to pass on this message of hope to others that are in a, you know, in a worse off situation, thinking they can't do it. Okay, so you both had full-time jobs. The good things that you had going for you is you had full-time jobs, you had relatively good deposit, and what about your credit check?

Speaker 2 2:54

I thought it was going to be bad, but it actually came back really good.

Speaker 1 2:58

Yeah, why did you think it was going to be bad?

Speaker 2 3:00

Just past mistakes and bad habits and yeah.

Speaker 1 3:05

Yeah, but it's good to see that again. You know you thought that because of the credit check, it may affect your application. Did you run a credit check on yourself before coming to see me?

Speaker 2 3:16

definitely and then definitely did, and then I was like, okay, I might have a shot yeah, awesome, did Crystal do the same? No she just, she just went, went with it she just went with it.

Challenging Assumptions: 18% Deposit Journey

Speaker 1 3:29

I love it okay. So we had a low deposit, we had incomes and we actually had a surprisingly good credit check. So that's three things that we normally look at In terms of debt. Did you have much student loans or car loans or anything?

Speaker 2 3:44

I didn't have any debt, luckily.

Speaker 1 3:46

Why is that?

Speaker 2 3:48

We paid it all off over the last five years.

Speaker 1 3:50

Yeah, before coming to see me. Yeah, did you see anyone else before you came to see me? No, so you see anyone else before you came to see me? No, so you were just doing it on your own. Because you know what I remember about you One time I was at the I wasn't at the bakery, I was next door or something, and my car was parked outside the bakery and I think you came out because you recognized my car and you said I'm going to come and see you. But then another nine months passed and you didn't.

Speaker 2 4:18

Yeah, that was when I got that initial idea like I'm going to go buy a house, and then it sort of stemmed from there and took a little while to get in motion. Even once I started the application process it was a bit slow for me. My end.

Speaker 1 4:28

Yeah, so let's talk about the application process, because this is where a lot of you know first-time buyers feel a little bit nervous. How did you find the application process?

Speaker 2 4:37

It wasn't too bad. I had a lot of help along the way, but I'm not trying to fill the forms out on my phone, wasn't the go? Yeah, once I put it on the laptop, it was okay yeah, okay, and then collecting pay slips, bank statements it's all easy all easy, right.

Speaker 1 4:55

So, all in all, if we had to put a time limit on it, how long do you think it took you to put the application together?

Speaker 2 5:01

oh me a little while. If you're a tech savvy, you could have it together in a couple of days without a worry, really yeah.

Speaker 1 5:09

Usually I say under an hour. Yeah, not me. Okay, all right, and so it wasn't too hard. It's easier if you're tech savvy, but it's actually not too hard, and I think we've tried to help you along the way as well of, you know, holding your hand and telling you what sort of stuff we're missing. So that's good. Now, in terms of the house hunting process, let's dive into that a little bit.

Application Process and House Hunting

Speaker 2 5:34

Right Open homing every weekend. That was great fun. Just seeing how many people were actually going to the open homes, that was quite overwhelming. You'd turn up to an open home homes that was quite overwhelming. Like you'd turn up to an open home. There'd potentially be 30 to 40 people there and you're like wow, like how many offers are going to be on the table? Is my offer going to be right or there's just lots to think about.

Speaker 1 5:58

It is very overwhelming yeah, and you did put an offer on the property, yeah yeah, we put a couple offers in.

Speaker 2 6:04

one came back with a bad building report, so we withdrew from that one, and then the other one we ended up missing out on by a little bit.

Speaker 1 6:13

Yeah, the one that came back was the bad building report. Yeah, obviously you spend money on it, you know, and you put your heart and soul into it and it's like damn, we actually had to pull back. Why did you get scared Like what was so bad about it that you thought not gonna buy this one?

Speaker 2 6:29

um, it needed a whole new re-roof and there was asbestos detected and things and yeah, just a lot more maintenance than we thought was going to be having to happen and I guess as a first-time buyer, if you're already putting all of your deposit towards the house purchase, there's not much cash to play with no not at all so you have to be careful with what properties?

Speaker 2 6:51

yeah, definitely I mean you have to have that money sitting there to be prepared to be putting in offers. Yeah, each time you're putting an offer, it's basically costing you a thousand dollars well, hopefully not if, if you're, you know getting your building report and your limb done if your offer's successful.

Speaker 1 7:07

Yeah, exactly. So what would you recommend to first-time buyers in that sense, if they're listening to this, what did you?

Speaker 2 7:14

learn. Don't rush into it, but don't tell an agent how much your budget is either.

Speaker 1 7:25

Because they will stretch you to the limit.

Speaker 2 7:27

Oh, if they know, they will try and stretch you. Yeah, that was one thing that we actually did pretty well on, and they were quite pushy with trying to get out of. Us was getting a number, so don't give them a number. Yeah, that's a good one, that's a really good one.

Speaker 1 7:41

Don't give them a number, okay? Um, keep your cards close to your chest, right? Yeah? And it's really interesting because sometimes there are agents in town that I know of, for instance, and if they're asking, you know first-time buyers that are coming in, do you have an approval, do you have a broker? Yeah, and normally you would say, yep, sibouni, so they usually know me, so they might give me a call as well and they might say to them talk to the client. I cannot disclose.

Speaker 1 8:16

And the reason I'm raising this is that sometimes I see in all those facebook forums that brokers and agents work really close together and brokers have advisors, have been mentioning what the clients are pre-approved for, and that's a huge no-no in my books. I may give a relative number or I might say, yep, they are pre-approved, and usually, to be honest, I downplay it as well. I usually say you know they're pre-approved up to 700, but I know you are pre-approved 750 to 800. So I try to again, again, lower the agent expectations, definitely, and I guess when they hear it from me oh, my god, I hope they're not listening to this one now they're like damn, I've just, you know, given out my cards, but, um, but yeah, I just hope that in that sense they know okay, this is how much you can go, we're not going to push you any further, because I do want to leave that buffer aside for you definitely to do those repairs and, you know, make the home your home.

Speaker 1 9:11

Okay, so you will go into open homes. How many open homes did you visit, you reckon.

Speaker 2 9:17

Probably about 20 or 30. Whoa. Yeah, we went through quite a lot of houses. Yeah, we didn't want something that we had to spend money on once we moved into it or have to do maintenance straight away. We just wanted to move in and be able to relax.

Speaker 1 9:33

Yeah, did you have like a checklist when you would go to open homes, at least a mental one, of things that were important to you and things that were important to Crystal?

Speaker 2 9:44

It was mainly just garage and fully fenced.

Speaker 1 9:46

I thought it would be kitchen. I thought it would be just garaged and fully fenced. I thought the kitchen.

Speaker 2 9:48

I thought it'd be like a kitchen and an oven both being cooks, it's it's hard to get motivated when you you get home and look at a kitchen.

Speaker 1 9:56

Really wow, so that's interesting. So I thought you'd be coming home and you'll be like cooking for each other and things like that. No, nope, okay.

Speaker 2 10:06

I spend most of our lives cooking, so Okay.

Speaker 1 10:09

That makes sense. Yeah, I guess, like a builder's house that's never finished.

Speaker 2 10:13

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 10:15

So you've got a two-cook's house that they'll never get cooked at. That's interesting. Okay, so garage was important to you.

Speaker 2 10:21

A section for the dogs, for the doggies, yeah, yeah, so we've got a little bit of a section.

Speaker 1 10:28

We've got a garage big enough for a boat, and when you were putting offers, did you have lawyers to help you out to do this?

Open Home Realities and Deal-Breakers

Speaker 2 10:34

Yep yep, I did. We have a family friend, luckily that is a good lawyer, property lawyer so we went through her.

Speaker 1 10:43

So you knew what conditions to put in Yep.

Speaker 2 10:46

They talked you through, so I guess the first one when you were putting was a bit nerve-wracking. Yeah, definitely, but after that it was. I could just put my offer in and then talk to my lawyer about it later. Let her know that I've done this. Yeah, but as long as I had the conditions she set out at the start, she was more than happy yeah, so as long as you replicated the conditions across and that's a very important topic. Definitely you need to have those conditions to safeguard. Yeah, safeguard yourself.

Speaker 1 11:12

Yeah, okay, cool. So you've put an offer. And then there was an interesting moment between going conditional to unconditional and I guess you didn't have 20% deposit, so we had to order registered valuation, yep. And this is where the value goes out looks at your property and gives us the price, and we're lucky that it came back it was good. At the value. I think it just came back a bit even higher for you, it was slightly higher.

Speaker 2 11:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah On the first one, yeah, yeah. That was good.

Speaker 1 11:42

And then you go unconditional. We say, yep, cool, you can go ahead. Now You're unconditional. And that's when we sat down and we talked about the structure of your loan. And again, it's an interesting time that you're buying in because the OCR was changing. The interest rates are going down.

Speaker 2 11:58

That was a hard decision to lock in or to float until the next OCR update.

Speaker 1 12:06

Yeah, so what did you end up doing?

Speaker 2 12:08

We split it up and locked in for a year and two years.

Speaker 1 12:13

Yeah, why did you split it up, ryan?

Speaker 2 12:16

Certainty, for the next year at least, yeah.

Speaker 1 12:20

And that's good. That's good right, Because you both have stable jobs. You know exactly how much you're earning, so it's good to know exactly how much you're paying.

Speaker 2 12:27

Definitely Towards your bills. It helps to know, to be able to budget and then you know to know how much you're able to save again once you've got the mortgage and whatnot Okay. It's definitely the key.

Speaker 1 12:38

Cool, cool. What are the pitfalls that you sort of learned about along the way of ooh, I could have done this better, or oh, this was amazing and fantastic.

Speaker 2 12:51

Yeah, no, it was a pretty cool journey really.

Speaker 1 12:53

Oh good, even though you visited like 30 open homes.

Speaker 2 12:57

Oh, you know you've got to see what's out there, mm-hmm. Yeah, there's lots of different houses. They're all designed differently, yeah.

Speaker 1 13:04

Because you're both quite young, right? Do you want to share how old you?

Speaker 2 13:09

are 33.

Speaker 1 13:10

Yeah, and Crystal 30. Old, you are um 33, yeah, and crystal 30, yeah. So your young couple trying to get on the ladder, yeah, um, what's next for you?

Speaker 2 13:18

get this mortgage paid off asap why is that important to you? Um, just for future, you know when I get a rental home on top of this home.

Getting Unconditional and Future Plans

Speaker 1 13:29

Okay, start building up things, building up assets and yeah, did you know you can use the equity in your home to buy the next house?

Speaker 2 13:36

I do know that, yes.

Speaker 1 13:38

Really, I've just done an episode on equity, so go back and listen to that one. But yeah, that's a really good way to get on the ladder. I always say to people that your first home is not your forever home.

Speaker 2 13:48

No.

Speaker 1 13:49

It's a stepping stone.

Speaker 2 13:50

It definitely is.

Speaker 1 13:51

Yeah. And then do you plan to have children in the future? Potentially, yeah. And that's another thing, right, like, while you're still both working no children, not big expenses although docs can be very expensive try to pay as much as possible towards your mortgage. Get it down to a certain level and then, with the capital gains as the property goes up in value, you have that equity. Yeah, certain level. And then, with the capital gains as the property goes up in value, you have that equity, yeah, and in a few years time we should be able to buy you another, the next one. Are you going to come back to me, of course? Yes, yes, that's what I want to hear. That's cool. Um, the other thing we also discussed about when you buy a house is the importance of insurance.

Speaker 2 14:28

So obviously, house insurance, yep, absolute must definitely a mustents, not so much a must, for the mortgage side of things.

Speaker 1 14:37

Yeah, and then we talked about life insurance and mortgage protection. We did. I'm looking at you.

Speaker 2 14:45

We did talk about that.

Speaker 1 14:47

Because if one of you is out of the picture and that's where the important part is yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 14:51

I mean, with one of us being out of the picture, work-wise, it would be an absolute struggle to pay.

Speaker 1 14:57

Yeah, so you're coming back to see me right To get that sorted.

Speaker 2 15:03

I will be getting there.

Speaker 1 15:05

And that's another thing as well. When you're buying your first home, you've got so many expenses coming out of your ears. You've just lost your whole deposit to buy a house, so your cash reserves are depleted and, as you say, if you already paid for a few builder's reports, limb reports, lawyers, valuations, all that cash just goes out of the window.

Speaker 2 15:23

It all adds up very quickly.

Speaker 1 15:24

Yeah, and the first year I usually let my clients be in the way of trying to figure out the expenses. So we talk about setting up budgets. You know, making sure you've got automatic payments for your rates for house insurance because these are the two you cannot miss and a mortgage. Those are your three absolute bills, the musts, and then everything else is sort of on top. Okay, you've got to keep your house running with power. You know electricity has to go, water, internet, and then everything else is not a must. No, Well, food, I guess.

Speaker 2 15:57

Food's a must. You just eat at work.

Speaker 1 15:59

Ryan Band don't listen to this episode If you suddenly see pies missing. Yeah, and that's the thing, right? I mean, at least both of you are fortunate to be in the food industry. So you know's something you can um some package, work, package you have through work yeah, we definitely both get benefits through work. That's awesome yeah, because that's the highest um cost at the moment it definitely is yeah, and the price of butter.

Speaker 1 16:25

I think butter we won't even go there no, but I think like that's a hot topic at the moment it definitely is yeah, ten dollars for a block of butter that's robbery what, and I'm like we're not.

Speaker 1 16:37

When I first was coming to new zealand, new zealand is known to be um dairy country, dairy country right. We import new zealand butter to my country. So in tajikistan new zealand butter is like absolute bow down, the best butter ever. And I was like, oh cool, I'm coming to New Zealand, I'll have like a really cheap access to butter, lamb cheese and before we know it it's like whoa.

Speaker 2 17:03

Skyrocketed.

Life After Purchase: Budgeting Success

Speaker 1 17:04

It's cheaper to buy butter in my country. Now, new Zealand butter is cheaper in my country. I can imagine that's crazy. That is crazy. All right, so you've settled in. Have you painted any walls yet?

Speaker 2 17:17

No, I haven't painted any, I haven't ripped any out.

Speaker 1 17:20

Okay, good Carpets.

Speaker 2 17:23

It's all brand new.

Speaker 1 17:24

Nice Backyard. Have you got a lawnmower?

Speaker 2 17:28

I've mowed it a couple of times already.

Speaker 1 17:29

Nice. That's like the badge of honour of being a homeowner now.

Speaker 2 17:33

Yep.

Speaker 1 17:34

Of looking after your thing.

Speaker 2 17:35

Fortunately it's not too big, like the last one, yeah.

Speaker 1 17:42

But it's so cool to see that you thought it's not possible, to a point where, like it may be, and it's like actually, yes, it is possible.

Speaker 2 17:46

Yep.

Speaker 1 17:47

How did it make you feel through this?

Speaker 2 17:49

Absolutely amazing and anything's really possible.

Speaker 1 17:52

It doesn't matter where you've come from or what your life story is um that can all be turned around yeah, really, because some of us do some dumb stuff when we're younger definitely in their 20s, yeah, yeah, but the main thing is not to give up, right no, you got to keep at it yeah say to people look, it's easier to do dumb stuff in your 20s and recover from it and set back on a good path of life when you're in your 30s. It's harder when you do dumb stuff when you're like 60 and trying to recover from it. It's still possible, but it's a bit harder.

Speaker 2 18:26

It's a lot harder.

Speaker 1 18:27

Now I'm absolutely proud of the journey that you had, because I do know a bit more to your background.

Speaker 2 18:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:34

And it's awesome to see someone like you succeed. Despite the challenges that you had, you put those behind you. You've made the good track of repaying your debt yeah, trying to save as much money as possible, being good with money, not getting into any new debt yeah, so that's awesome. That's really good to see of a young person. And you didn't really have much parents' help either. A little bit, a little bit, but yeah, not like some parents, give out, you know, 100k, 200k to the kids.

Speaker 1 19:02

You didn't have that, so it's good to see that you could do it with Crystal.

Speaker 2 19:07

Yes.

Speaker 1 19:07

Just combining your powers together, are you able to now save a bit more money as well while you're paying your mortgage and your bills, and stuff.

Speaker 2 19:16

We're still able to save money, but not at the rate we were saving before we had the mortgage.

Speaker 1 19:23

It's just what I'm trying to prove. A point here is that for a lot of young people they're scared to go into home ownership because they think once they buy a house, that's it. They can't do anything fun anymore.

Speaker 2 19:32

That's not the case. I just got back from a weekend away at Wairiki International Golf Course.

Speaker 1 19:38

How did you do? By the way?

Speaker 2 19:41

Not so good on that course, but the next day was not bad.

Speaker 1 19:44

Okay, but that just proves the point right. So you went away while and you just bought a house like a month ago, Yep yeah.

Speaker 2 19:51

Yep Still able to go away. Holiday save. Continue on with life. Have fun. Pay the mortgage yeah growth I love it.

Speaker 1 20:01

I love the mindset that you have right thank you so much for coming. No worries, um, today it's awesome to have you as a guest and hopefully your message has shared a bit more hope to those that are struggling on the fence, thinking can they do it or can they? Not, I'd hope so yeah, any any last words to the ones that are listening, just get out there, get saving and get it done. Get on the ladder get on the ladder, love it. Thank you, ryan. Brilliant, have a good one.