How many times have you caught yourself flipping through that glossy interiors magazine, gazing at your dream home and thinking it will always be beyond your reach? Owning that dream home complete with white picket fence and backyard pool may seem like just that – a dream – but it is possible to make it a reality without a lottery win. Sure it helps to have you and a partner both earning a good salary, sharing a mortgage with the best rate thanks to your great credit rating, and slowly climbing the ladder by trading up until you get to where you want to be. But if you feel like time isn’t on your side, consider the following tips and tricks to help you get there a little faster…
Downsize Temporarily
It may seem counterintuitive, but if there’s any way that you can downsize in the short term, it’s a brilliant way to get your forever home faster. Paying a substantial amount in rent makes it hard to save up the cash required for that perfect house. If there’s a way that you can either move in with family for a nominal rent as a favour, go into a house share temporarily to keep bills down, find a smaller and cheaper place for a while or even look into becoming a property guardian, where you get to live in some amazing locations for a nominal rent in return for caretaking the building, then jump on it. It might not be ideal, but you can maximise what you’re able to save by spending less on rental and utilities and fast track your way to your long term goal.
Think Outside The Box
Sometimes we become focused on what we can’t have – but what about if you looked at the problem from a different angle? If there’s a specific type of home that you’re dreaming of, it could be well worth looking into self-build houses, purchasing land in a new community like Wyndham Ridge, and developing your dream home from the ground up. If you have contacts or skills in the building trade, this can be a great route to go. Alternatively, look at properties that aren’t the dream home but have the potential to be turned into one through development work. Could that ugly 70’s concrete house going cheap be given a complete face lift to turn it into a stunning like-new home? Make sure you factor the cost of any works into the purchase price, but if you love the location, you can change almost everything else.
Expand Where You Are
If you already own a home, but it’s not your dream house, consider carefully the factors that are making you want to leave. If you love the neighbourhood, but you need more space, consider whether you can rejig and expand your current property. This can be costly, but not compared to a larger house purchase and the expense and stress of a move. A talented architect can completely reimagine the floor plan of your home, creating a space which suits your new life, adding floors, extracting basements, removing and adding walls to make your current home fit for purpose.
This is a collaborative post.
