From state house to home buyer
Family share their excitement over owning their home
We’ve already driven past the home a million times, just looking from the outside. Grace Lauina
Time can’t pass fast enough for Grace Lauina this morning: she picks up the keys to her first home at noon today. The Auckland mother-of-two, who expects another child with husband Mativa in December, will take the final step from a childhood in state housing on to the property ladder.
Her father, Reverend Sefo Silipa, always dreamed of buying a house for his family to inherit, but laboured under the financial pressure of supporting relatives in Samoa.
Then, five years ago, tragedy struck. He lost his life savings to a scam he thought was helping him save for a house.
But in 2016, when the family’s dream of home ownership seemed further away than ever, Lauina and her husband took a personal finance course and sought help from the Ta¯maki Regeneration project.
Three years later, they’ve reduced their debts and today move into a brand new, four-bedroom Glen Innes home they will have the chance to buy in shared ownership with charity NZ Housing Foundation.
“There are no words to describe it — we are so excited,” Grace said. “We’ve already driven past the home a million times, just looking from the outside.”
The Lauinas aren’t the only Auckland family getting a leg up. The Housing Foundation has helped about 50 low-income families into their first homes this year and more
than 300 in the past eight years.
Yet after a decade of soaring Auckland house prices that is a drop in the ocean as many families remain locked out of the housing market.
Reserve Bank figures this week showed almost half of Auckland firsthome buyers were paying off home loans five times greater than their annual salaries.
Before buyers even get as far as a loan they have to raise huge deposits, while paying Auckland rents.
To help young Kiwi families on the path to home ownership, the Ta¯maki Regeneration Company, an initiative jointly owned by the council and the Government, runs money management courses with the Commission For Financial Capability.
The Lauinas took the seven-week course in 2016 with Ta¯maki Regeneration staff helping to keep them on track. The commission’s Peter Kordtz said families who took the course in 2016 had managed to reduce debts as high as $50,000 in just a few years, before moving into homes this year.
Mativa said the guidance helped his family distinguish between what they needed and what they wanted.
Fast food was now replaced by home-cooked meals, and $100 Nike T-Shirts by $10 shirts.
The family are also paying off a car they had earlier bought on exorbitant interest repayment rates.
“It hurts, it’s like buying two cars because of the interest — but we learned from that,” Mativa said.
The Lauinas were busy packing boxes spilling over with toys and kitchen goods, when the Herald caught up with them last night.
Grace’s mum will move into the new home with the family but her dad passed away in February.
“It will be bittersweet because it was always his dream,” she said.
And the journey isn’t over once the Lauinas take the keys. For the first five years they will pay “an affordable rent” to the Housing Foundation, set at 30 per cent of their income.
This will give them time to save money for a deposit and boost their KiwiSaver savings.
Then after five years, they can put these savings and their entitlement to 25 per cent of any equity gain in the house to apply for a home loan.
Typically, families are able to take out home loans for a 60 per cent share in the house with Housing Foundation retaining a 40 per cent share, said the charity’s general manager operations, Dominic Foote.
Most families then buy out the foundation’s remaining 40 per cent share in five to six years more, he said.
For 8-year-old son Zion, the transition hasn’t been smooth sailing — he was left a bit teary at having to leave friends and change schools again.
“I told him, ‘Sorry son, I won’t be doing that to you again — this time we are settling for good’,” Mativa said.