Our first home: Family helping first time buyers

Moving day: Robert has just settled on his first home in Auckland, a purchase made possible by disciplined savings and assistance from his parents.

Rob Renton did not expect to be buying his first home at the age of 23, especially as he's only been working for a year. But he's just become the proud owner of a three bedroom Auckland home and although he's still quite surprised to be in that position, he couldn't be happier.

"This is way sooner than I thought I would end up buying a place of my own," admits Rob, a land surveyor. "I always thought I'd work for a while, go overseas and then start thinking about buying once I came back and settled down. But I am glad it has worked out this way."

Rob's age means he bucks one of the trends shown by recent research. People buying their first home are getting older - less than half of those who took part in a survey carried out by Barfoot & Thompson were under 30. But in other ways, he's typical of many of this generation's first home buyers in that he did it with help from his family.

The survey found that 47 percent of those who have bought their first home in the past five years have received some form of financial assistance from family. Of those, 44 percent were given a gift of money, while 34 percent received a loan. Others have had a family guarantor, used an inheritance or a family member has shared the purchase with them.

Rob's parents Christina and Greg helped him out using their own resources to cover half of his deposit. His mum and dad are both property savvy - Greg, who lives in Napier, has done up and sold numerous houses, while Christina, from the North Shore, owns several rental properties.

"Mum and dad were keen for me to get into the property market, and I'm very grateful to them for helping me out," says Rob. "I couldn't have done it without them. I would have had to save for a lot longer."

He was able to come up half of the deposit himself thanks to good financial habits instilled when he was a youngster. He started by putting $5 a week into his bank account throughout his school years. When he went to university he made the effort to bank $20 a fortnight, and once he started work last year as a surveyor, he upped that amount to $1000 a month.

Living at home with his mum for part of the year helped him to save, as did doing things like taking his lunch to work instead of buying it and foregoing takeaways for home-cooked meals.

Still, he wasn't planning on using his nest egg as a deposit on a house until he was inspired by a former flatmate. "She moved out because she bought her own place, and when I saw what she was doing it was a real eye-opener. She's the same age as me, and I thought, 'That's a good idea'."

When the lease ran out on the flat and Rob had to find somewhere else to live, he realised that if he found the right house to buy, the mortgage repayments could be around the same as he'd expect to pay in rent.

Sorting out finance with the bank was not a problem thanks to his parents' backing, and unlike many purchasers who spend months house-hunting because of the current shortage of homes, it only took Rob around six weeks to find the house he ended up buying.

The home he bought needs a little bit of work but nothing major, and Rob is looking forward to tackling jobs like building a new deck with some help from his dad. There is also the option to add value to the property by converting a basement space into a fourth bedroom with an en suite. He'll be getting in a couple of flatmates to help pay the mortgage, and he says being a home owner won't scuttle his plans to do an OE one day because he can rent the house while he's overseas.

MORE FROM THE BARFOOT & THOMPSON SURVEY

• More first home buyers are purchasing properties as investments, rather than to live in themselves. While numbers are still small, 9 percent of purchases between 2000 and 2015 have been as investments, compared with just 3 percent before 2000.
• Like Rob, an increasing number of first home buyers aren't fazed about purchasing property on their own. Before 1970, 94 percent of people buying their first house did so with a partner or spouse. In the last five years, that figure has dropped to 63 percent.
• It is taking first home buyers longer, on average, to save for their deposit. Nearly half (47 percent) of those buying their first home since 2010 took three to five years to get enough money for a deposit.

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