A six-year-old sealing the deal for her parents in their 40s, a single dad with a dream, and a Fijian-born woman buying her first home in New Zealand. These are just some of the success stories from Rotorua residents who have secured the keys to their first homes. They speak
How these Rotorua first-home buyers secured the keys to home ownership
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“We wanted... security for our children,” Kayanne said.
Kayanne said she was gifted about $30,000 from her mother who received a superannuation payout after moving back from Australia when she retired.
After helping her sister move into her first home, Kayanne said she was left with about $10,000. The pair saved about $100 a week to try and keep the savings topped up.
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“I worked my butt off.”
The pair also had about $55,000 in KiwiSaver between them. All up, they had about $65,000 for a house deposit.
However, Kayanne said they found it difficult to get a loan approved by the banks because their deposit was not quite enough to get the home they wanted, and both earned over the threshold for getting any first-home grants.
“That was our dilemma,” she said. “I was at my witts end and about to give up.”
The Wilsons were eventually approved by a bank after her friend put them in touch with a mortgage broker.
“I can remember the day. I was driving to netball and I got an email. All I saw was congratulations so I parked up.
“I just cried. I rang my husband straight away to say, ‘We got the yes!’.”
After looking at about half a dozen homes, the family settled on a three-bedroom, one-bathroom, house on Sunset Rd in Sunnybrook.
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“The whole family fell in love,” Kayanne said.
Six-year-old Ayla-Rose loved the “fairy garden”.
“It was really quirky. We all liked different aspects of it.”
So the Wilsons put in their offer along with other buyers.
Kayanne said their salesperson, Chander Sandhu from Ray White Rotorua, had told the vendor about their 6-year-old daughter loving the “fairy garden” and she believed that it won them over.
They bought the home for $555,000 and moved in at the end of April.
The day they got the keys Kayanne said was a “beautiful feeling”.
“It was like, ‘This is ours’,” she said. “Knowing that our babies have security now, that was the biggest thing.”
‘Dream come true’
Ben Kumar says she has always dreamed about buying her first home in New Zealand.
Kumar had been saving for her own home since moving to New Zealand from Fiji in 2013.
She worked in the South Island in the hotel industry for about seven years before moving to Rotorua after gaining her New Zealand residency. Kumar now works at Rydges Rotorua.
Kumar had saved up about $70,000 and was ready to buy her own home this year.
“I had a dream of owning my own home here in New Zealand.”
Kumar said she only had about $1000 to her name when she arrived in New Zealand but she said she worked hard to put aside money for her deposit - putting $100 aside a week and saving “little by little”.
She also worked extra hours when she could.
Kumar also applied for KiwiSaver after gaining her residency and it had grown to about $11,000 by the time she was ready to apply for a loan.
Kumar, who does not drive, would walk to appointments with her lawyer, mortgage broker and to open homes.
“I don’t like to be dependent on anybody,” she said.
Kumar fell in love with a two-bedroom city-centre apartment in the Sunhaven complex on Eruera St and for $333,000 it was all hers.
“I just couldn’t believe myself. It felt like a dream come true,” she said. “I felt so so so happy.”
Kumar said she counted herself lucky to own her own home.
“It is amazing to own my own home. I was so excited.”
Her message to other first-home buyers was to work hard, save slowly, and don’t spend money on unnecessary things.
“It does not happen overnight but if it is in your heart, you can do it,” she said.
“If you don’t have a goal you won’t be able to save. Nothing is impossible.”
‘All worth it’
Rey Pallasigue spent six years saving for his first home.
The 44-year-old fabricator welder hopes his story will inspire others.
Pallasigue started putting money into his KiwiSaver in 2016.
Pallasigue had been renting a room in Rotorua after a marriage breakup in 2017.
Pallasigue said between paying his rent each week and sending money to support his two children, who were being cared for by his parents in the Phillippines, he was also trying to save as much as he could.
“It was painful to be away from my children but I endured it just to save money.”
In March 2021, he decided to register his own engineering company and he worked as a subcontractor.
Last year, Pallasigue brought his children back to New Zealand.
He had saved up about $85,000 by the time he was ready to buy.
This year, he bought his three-bedroom, one-bathroom home in Rotorua for $600,000.
Pallasigue said like everyone else, it was his dream to become a homeowner and “be able to have comfortable living with my family”.
He moved in last month and said it was overwhelming to be able to have his own home.
“It was a bit of a process from making an offer until waiting for settlement. It was nerve-wracking but all worth it.”
His advice to other first-home buyers was to be patient, never give up, and “save as much as you can”.
“If you made an offer and got declined don’t take it seriously, it only means that house is not meant for you, and save as much as you can.”
The numbers
OneRoof editor Owen Vaughan said first home buyers’ share of Rotorua’s market had increased slightly from 41 per cent in the last three months of 2022 to 43 per cent in the first three months of 2023.
“First-home buyers are still quite active in the market despite the number of deals being significantly lower,” Vaughan said.
Despite the cost to borrow and high-interest rates, first-home buyers were in a much better position with the heat of competition gone from the market, more choices, and lower price points.
He said “without a doubt” it was a significant achievement for first-home buyers to have bought in the current market.
“The biggest barrier for first-home buyers has always been getting a deposit together and that is still challenging.
“It is still tough out there but there are changes that have made it more favourable for first-home buyers.”
However, he said the rate of decline of prices was slowing and he expected the downturn not to last much longer.
“If I was a first-home buyer, I would be looking to buy now before the changes in the market.”
The latest OneRoof-Valocity figures have also revealed which regions have beaten the property slump by researching how much average values had grown in the last three years, how far they had fallen since the height of the market boom, and how they have performed since before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
The data showed Rotorua’s average property value was $709,000.
That was a 10.10 per cent - or $80,000 - drop compared to a year ago and 3.4 per cent - or $25,000 - less than three months ago.
It was also 11.60 per cent - or $93,000 - less than Rotorua’s peak value of $802,000 on May 30, 2022. However, it was 11.5 per cent - or $73,000 - higher than its $636,000 value pre-Covid.
Bay of Plenty property values were still significantly higher than the rest of the country - up $222,000 compared to March 2020 just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
That was more than the $185,000 national property average change since pre-Covid-19.
