Thanks everyone for sharing their stories.
Here is my contribution, sorry the figures are very out of date as this happend in 1984, but hopefully the process could entertain you for a few secs….

Our first PPOR purchase (in SA).

Our situation:
Both were 2nd year fulltime uni students with a 2yrs old child, living on student allowance (was called TEAS, Tertiary Assistance Scheeme then) and partime work at restaurant.

Total purchase inc. expenses= 54K
Bank would only lend 30K (after rims of proof of income and character reference provided)

—> we needed to find 24K deposit (HUGE amt for us !!!).

We had 10K savings (how we managed to achieve this, was another story), plus 4K of First Home Owner Scheeme . I.E. we were still 10K short.

What we did was:
1./ AS we both worked 2 nights per week at a restaurant earning $140 p/week, which was $7200 per year. We approached the owner proposing them to pay us our one-year earning of $6000 upfront, instead of $7200. This would be similar to them lending us $6000 and we pay them back $7200 within a year. Took them by surprise but they eventually agreed as we had been dedicated trustworthy waiters and they did want to keep us…

2./ Ok, now we still had to find another $4000. We called onto friends and the people we knew, proposing the following:
20 of them, each put in $200 to lend to us , this meant $4,000 for us.
What they would have in return: every month for 20 months, each kept putting in $200 and a name was drawn from the hat. This person would get the next $4000. If this person did not need the money right at that time then he/she could pass the turn to someone else who did.

Our risk: we had to act as guarrantor. This meant if any member had had their turn, took the $4000 and then ran, we would have to cover for them. It was a big risk but mittigated by us carefully chosing the members. A lot of mutual trust involed here and the system would only work with the people you know well. You have to have proven credibility otherwise no one would want to join.

We moved into our first 3bed house, shared one room with a student going to the uni nearby. The extra income helped paying our mortgage.

If I could turn the clock back I would do a few things differently. But no regrets, as all we can do is making the best decision we know how at the time…..

Cheers,

Bris04,
Good to see another Brissy…
How is Rochester compared with Texas in your research as I have friends buying groups of units there (Texas)for +cf also.

Have sent you a PM.
Regards