‘Haven’t given me a cent’: How a 19-year-old saved $30k to buy a house
19-year-old Madison Pickering has revealed how she managed to save for a $30,000 house deposit.
The Queensland teenager has been saving up since she was 11 years old, and got a job at McDonald’s as soon as she was legally of age to work, she told A Current Affair.
"I always kind of knew it was something I wanted to do ... own property,” Pickering said.
And when she turned 16, she approached her mother with plans to purchase a house.
"Once she turned 18 and knew she was able to apply for a loan that's when it became very serious," said Pickering’s mother Raelene.
Pickering now owns a house and land package in the south of Brisbane, worth around $300,000.
But it wasn’t an easy path to home ownership: when she visited the display house, scouts would basically ignore her and make a beeline for her mother, she said.
"They would look me up and down and turn around to my mum and say, 'So you are the one buying' and she was like, 'No, turn around'.”
Not only that, but her first attempt at obtaining a loan was knocked back, so Pickering saved more and tried again.
Now that she owns the home, she’s already visualising how the house’s interior will look.
Pickering was eligible for the $15,000 First Home Owner Grant as well as the $25,000 HomeBuilder package.
Pickering also said she encountered people who doubted her on her journey to becoming a home owner.
"Everyone I've spoken to is like, ‘How did you do that? Oh, your parents must have given you this money’.
“No, [my] parents haven't given me a cent. This is everything I've worked for myself. I've done all of this hard work on my own,” she said.
Her advice for young aspiring home-owners? Securing the deposit is the first step.
"I had enough for a deposit, and that's all that matters. And I think younger people who are watching and wanting to do what I've done need to understand, you don't need to have the final price. You just need to have a really good deposit.”
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