Auckland first-time house buyers Tristan and Jessica Lomberg stepped out of the LVR trap by being hard-out savers.
"We're living in a one-bedroom flat and we've been here three years," said Tristan Lomberg, a systems analyst married to primary school teacher Jessica.
"We're a little lucky, going to university and being good savers. We have student loans and a lot of that cash we could have used to pay off the student loans," he said.
Instead, they still have the loans but saved for their big deposit on the $460,000 three-bedroom north-facing place in Mt Wellington which will be built next year. Their mortgage broker advised them to have a 20 per cent deposit, Lomberg said.
LVRs are affecting at least one friend, forced to look increasingly further out to get into an affordable price range.
