Tim Watts, 34
“My girlfriend Lauren and I had been to a few auctions and bid on properties, but kept on missing out. We were just like everybody else, young professionals trying to get into the market. My best friend Grant was looking at units on his own, which he wasn’t so keen on. We thought heck, if we could combine the three of us, we’d pass that bracket where everybody was trying to buy, so we got a lot more bang for our buck.
For us it was a way that we could get into an area we wanted to live in — Grey Lynn/ Ponsonby. We weren’t really ready to shift out to the ’burbs and start that next stage in life. It was basically a flatting scenario still, but rather than paying someone else’s mortgage we were paying our own.
Lauren and I bought two-thirds of the house, Grant one-third. We did a three-year property agreement and, at the end of that time, there was an option that either party could buy the other out. Alternatively we would put the house on the market.
We did think about holding it longer, but I suppose we were ready for that next step. Lauren and I had got married during that time, as had Grant. It worked for that period of time, but we were ready to move on.
We didn’t really have any issues, yes we were friends, but we treated it properly. We both made sure we got legal advice, put together a proper agreement. No one was in there to screw the other, we both wanted the other one to do well, which we were lucky to do.
We’ve taken quite different approaches since. For me, I grew up in a rural area so I wanted to get to more of a rural setting, so we purchased land in Matakana. Grant and his wife purchased a house in Sandringham. It allowed us both to get ourselves into the property market. Putting it in finance terms, it allowed us to hedge the market.
If you’re going to have to be in Auckland and want to grow your career, you might as well think differently about this. It’s frustrating to see people worry about it, and read the paper every week about all the reasons it’s so hard to get in. People can bitch and moan about why the market’s doing this, but get over it. It isn’t ideal, but everyone’s got options.”