Alana bought her first home in 2021 and now realizes there are “a lot of pros and cons to owning a home.”
She had a budget of $400,000 and bought the entire place herself, using money she saved during the pandemic.
“All the money I saved that I could have spent on travel went to buying a house after Covid,” she said.
Buying her first home wasn’t a walk in the park; she said all the “paperwork” was overwhelming, and she had “no one to guide me.”
“I relied a lot on my broker and my friend who bought a house for advice,” she told news.com.au.
Alana currently lives in Los Angeles and rents her apartment in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St Kilda.
She’s 27 now, but she was only 24 when she bought her first property.
Looking back, she’s glad she bought it at the time, as the Melbourne market was seeing a huge surge in prices.
In April 2024, the latest PropTrack Home Price Index showed the city’s median unit price rose about $18,000 (3 percent) in the past year to $612,000.
“I’m glad I bought when I did because I was tired of paying off someone else’s loan,” she explained.
Although she is happy with her decision, that doesn’t mean that owning a home doesn’t have its downsides.
“I mean, now I have to pay a lot of insurance and rates,” she said.
The 27-year-old said her company’s fees are $2,000 a quarter, and she’s not looking forward to paying them.
“Make sure to research your insurance company’s fees before you buy. Always make sure you have a large amount of savings behind you in case of an emergency,” she said.
“When you own an apartment, there are a lot of unexpected bills that don’t directly affect your apartment, but you still have to pay.”
Alana said it can be tempting to put all your money into a mortgage, but in her experience, that’s a mistake.
“Don’t spend all your savings on buying a home, make sure you always have extra savings,” she said.
Now that Alana has moved out, she has tenants in her apartment, and she is very happy about that, but there are also concerns that come with that.
“I have to trust that there are decent people living in my little house,” she added.
Fortunately, she also found it easy to get tenants because she bought in central Melbourne, and found that people always wanted to rent a house around the city centre, so she did the ‘right thing’ there.
Despite the pressures that come with ownership, she is happy with herself for being able to progress and get on the property ladder.
“I’m glad I did it now. I don’t think buying a house, even a small one, in the city would be a bad idea at all.”
