That Home Loan Hub
Welcome to That Home Loan Hub, your ultimate guide to mastering the world of home loans and property. I'm Zebunisso Alimova, here to simplify the complexities of real estate and provide you with expert insights and the latest trends.
Whether you're a first-time homebuyer, an experienced investor, or simply curious about the property market, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we unlock the secrets to property success and help you make informed decisions. Let's dive into the world of property together!
That Home Loan Hub
From First Keys To Forever Home: Choosing Practicality Over Perks
The dream of a glossy first home is powerful—until the repayments start calling the shots. We take an honest look at the fork every first-home buyer faces: chase convenience and lifestyle now, or choose common sense and practicality that sets you up for bigger wins later. Through candid stories from our own first purchases—tiny floor plans, borders to boost cash flow, and unapologetically modest choices—we show how a smaller start can become the foundation for a future build or a forever home.
Across the conversation, we unpack the true cost of ownership beyond the bank’s pre-approval. Rates rise, insurance climbs, and everyday expenses don’t stop when you get the keys. We share a simple framework: test your budget with real numbers, not optimism. Use calculators to model repayments, add buffers for the unknown, and decide what lifestyle changes you’ll accept before you sign. Overstretching doesn’t just hit your wallet; it strains relationships, steals time, and can turn a home into a source of pressure rather than pride.
We also explore strategy: when a “forever home” makes sense, how to use stepping stones to build equity, and where regional towns can offer affordable entries without sacrificing your future options. The thread running through it all is sequencing—buy what you can comfortably hold today so you can move with confidence tomorrow. Whether you’re eyeing your first set of keys or recalibrating after a tough search, you’ll leave with a clear plan to buy smarter, sleep better, and keep your goals in sight.
Enjoyed the conversation? Follow the show, share it with a friend who’s house hunting, and leave a quick review—what’s the one trade-off you’re willing to make to get on the ladder?
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Hello and welcome back to that Homlon Hub. Kunch is my sidekick today. Hello, Kunch. Good morning. Good morning. What are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's actually afternoon already. Whoa. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Afternoon.
SPEAKER_01:Good afternoon. Afternoon, people. Uh, I thought we were um talk about a question that we had from one of our listeners. So the question is what is better for first home buyers? Convenience, lifestyle, or common sense and practicality? Ooh. We see a lot of, you know, first home buyers, and we get ones that will just pick any anything because it's within their budget and they want to get into the market. And then we see ones who are like a little bit fussier, like wanting that uh flash renovated bathroom and kitchen and things like that as their first home. So we've seen both sides. So we've seen the convenience lifestyle, and then we've seen the common sense practicality.
SPEAKER_00:What was your first home? What did you do?
SPEAKER_01:Mine was common sense and practicality, I think. So was mine. Yeah. It was what I could afford. Same. Like the bank gave me, I think we were pre-approved for 300k at the time. And I was like, okay, this is my budget, 300. That's not gonna go anywhere these days now. No. But we found something for the four of us. We found um an 80-meter square house, um, two-bedroom, small um living and kitchen, but we made it work. And was yours, it was ours, and we got it because yeah, it was common sense within our price range, and it was practical for us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I see, I see your point. Okay, yep. So my one was the same, it was six to nine square meters.
SPEAKER_01:Well, even smaller, even smaller, it was three bedroom. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00:I rented out two bedrooms. So you had borders. I had borders, real ones, yeah, real borders, and uh, and that helped us to get on the ladder, yeah. Helped us to get was our minimum budget that we had. And I of course I wanted a brand new house. Oh, who doesn't? I did too, but that wasn't gonna happen. No, my brand new house only happened was the house number four. Okay, yeah. So what about you? House number two. See? You went from that to new. Yeah. Versus we went from that house. I had my firstborn there. It's his birthday today. Yeah, happy birthday, Atlanta. Um, I had my I was just reminiscing about it yesterday that you know, um, about that house and how did we make it fit? I had to get rid of one of the flatmates. One remained. And because my mom came and stayed with us for a little bit to help out, I think for the first three weeks. And she's here now, she's back here now, and she's back here, and um, yeah, and that house was really small and little, but it's what we could afford. And then from there we went to a slightly bigger house around the corner, and then from there we moved cities from Palmy to Parpromu. And that house was much newer and more expensive. But I always wanted to build, I wanted a new house, and that's when we build in Why Can I? So house number four was the one we build, and often that reminds to our clients that look, yeah, everybody wants to have a flash house, everyone wants to have a lot of land or that lifestyle or live by the beach and have the view. You know, you've got a section now is the view. You can have picnics there, but um, you know, you you it's stages and ages in life. Don't try to run before you walk or crawl. Yeah, so sometimes you have to take those little steps to get to where you want to be. Correct.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And you know, now I live in this house and it's much bigger than my first house. Yeah. And I look back and I'm like, wow, but if I didn't buy that first house, I would not be sitting in this house right now.
SPEAKER_01:Same. Absolutely. I'm I'm in the same mindset as well. Like had I had actually gone for the lifestyle of having the bigger house, the flashier house as my first home, I would not have been able to achieve um the home I have now. Yeah. Yeah. Because I would we would have maxed ourselves out, um, and our loans repayments would have been, you know, too high for what our income was at the time, sort of thing.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah. The financial pressures often are the cause of families falling apart. Right. And this is where we see the problems, where people overstretch themselves, yeah, buy something that's well beyond their means, and then they start having issues in their marriage. Yeah. Because they either have to work super hard so they don't see each other. Yep. Or um they start going, you know, why are you not working? I'm working, I'm the only one pulling all this way. Like you create all this extra stress that you wouldn't have had otherwise.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And that's why I tend to um tell my clients, you know, here's the um repayment calculator. Yes, we've got a new pre-approved for this amount. However, play with this calculator. Work out if the repayments plus the rates plus the insurance works with your lifestyle. Yeah. Like how it is gonna change your lifestyle. It absolutely will. But how much of that lifestyle change are you comfortable with? Is kind of what I keep telling everyone.
SPEAKER_00:And also don't forget that insurances and rates are gonna continue to increase. It's not gonna come down.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So, you know, at some point you will reach a point where you're like, crap, I can't buy steak this week because I have to pay more.
SPEAKER_01:And and that's not what, you know, I want people to see to see people doing, or like, oh, we brought this house and I would have to sacrifice this. Hence why it's like play with those calculators, you know, have a look at what your um weekly net income is and what you've got left over, and see if you're comfortable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Budgeting, budgeting, budgeting, budgeting. We talk a lot about that. Yep. Numbers tell a story, and you are the only one that can take responsibility for your life. Okay. We are there to advise you, we are there to help you. It's almost like you know, last week I had my friend nutritionist Lucy, she came in and we talked about nutrition. As a nutritionist, she can suggest what you need to be eating, but if you're not eating it, you're not doing it.
SPEAKER_01:It's like you know you're meant to do it, but you're not, you know, you don't till you're like until until something happens to your life that scares you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And then you go, oh my god, I have to take charge. So, same with numbers, you know, same with money. You should know how much money you're bringing in each week, and you should know how much money is coming out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Hence why you've got to be practical when you select that first home.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, of course, if you went somewhere where it's super cheap, I saw an article um on the weekend, a place somewhere between Dunedin and some other town, I completely forgot. Um, you can buy a house under 400k. And it's a and I've actually been in that area at my last trip in Dunedin in August. It's much smaller than Otaki. Yeah. Close-knit community, you know, you've got fewer men, not that far away from the main city of Dunedin. Yeah. And you know, you can buy something under 400. So, you know, unless you're willing to make sacrifices in your beginning of the journey, you're not gonna get to that big picture of what you want to achieve. So you have to start small sometimes, yeah, and get to that bigger, have a bigger plan in mind. Always have a bigger plan.
SPEAKER_01:Always have that goal, the bigger goal. Yeah, but this is like the for now goal, right? You've got that foot in the door, you're in that market now, and then you go, okay, well, we'll hang tight for a couple of years, unless some people do want to just purchase their first home and stay in it forever. So I guess that's where that whole lifestyle option would come into play. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Again, stages and ages, you know. Sometimes we have clients that have gone overseas right after uni, traveled a lot, um, earned lots of money, have good deposits, come back, and they just want to buy a house to settle in. They want to buy a house where they're gonna raise their family, they don't want to move, they love their friends and relatives around them. So they know this is a forever home. Yeah. Um, then yeah, of course. But if you are in your 20s and you know the world is your oyster and you don't know where you're gonna settle down, buy what you can. Yeah, just get on the ladder and then have a five-year goal, ten-year goal, move from there. And my first home that I have um in Palmerster North, I still have that house. So cool. I've got an amazing tenant in there, she's been there for 10 years, and she's like, I want to live here, I want to, I want to die here, I want to buy this house. You know, so she loves that property, and she's been an amazing tenant, and um cool that property paid for itself by getting onto that letter early enough. Yeah, so expectations and reality. Yep, and what's a practicality? Practicality, common sense, and practicality. Yeah, common sense, awesome. And if you want us to crunch your numbers, feel free to get um in touch with us. We're here to help you and we're here to make you understand and see what you need to know to get ahead on the ladder. Thank you guys for listening. See you next time. Thanks, bye.
