Not a humblebrag thread. Buzz can tell you what kind of house we could buy with that budget in New Zealand in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch, which are the only places Pete could get a job.
Australia is even worse.
We can only afford that amount because our three bedroom bungalow that was a two hour commute each way from my husband's work, doubled in value. We didn't expect that to happen. We just couldn't afford anything else. We still can't afford anything else because every house in Sydney increased in value. The first house we rented in Sydney was sold while we were tenants and went for just under $900k. Now, it would be around $1.4 million. We can't pay anywhere near those prices, and four hours of travel each day, living in our own house, was very hard on us as a family.
Pete works for bank now, with offices in NY so he might get a transfer with sponsorship or whatever you call it. We have a limited window with his skill set, because there is a shortage of IT nerds with his credentials and a lot of work to do. That'll dry up in the next few years, probably. We didn't expect that to happen either. We came to Sydney for him to work in R&D at a tech firm and figured we'd rent forever.
We bought our house with a 5% deposit. We did have to pay a lot, in insurance.
The agent who sold it to us is now pushing us to sell, because our neighbour's house burned down (he was renting it out, too) and he is looking to buy our place so he has a bigger area to develop. So we're looking at other places to buy.
It's really just because we have a small opportunity to be financially independent from our children in retirement which I feel like is the decent thing to do. I can't imagine having to support my parents or watch them struggle in their old age and I don't want my kids to live with that either.
My husband's parents divorced when he was three (his mum left his Dad) and when his Dad died in an accident, he inherited his Dad's very small estate. His mum has made a living by attaching herself to rich men, but they never marry her and she has nothing. So every time she leaves a boyfriend she ends up crashing with one of my husband's cousins after he makes it clear she is not welcome to stay with us (because she'd never leave). She will probably end up sponging off us and her siblings. It sucks. I don't want us do that when I'm her age.
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