19-05-2025
Qld family moves to afford first home
Rob and Jacinta Orth have gone from shelling out thousands of dollars a week in rent during Covid to finally having a home to call their own.
The couple were renting on the Sunshine Coast when the pandemic hit, but were soon priced out of the area.
'We got smashed pretty hard when there were no houses available to rent,' Mr Orth said.
'We had to stay in holiday apartments and Airbnbs, and we were paying up to $2000 a week.
'If we didn't have a newborn baby, we would have slept in cars.
'Then we did get a house, but they kept upping the rent.'
The Orths moved to Caboolture chasing affordable rent while saving to buy a home.
Last month the couple, who have four children, were able to buy a fixer-upper in Caboolture for $640,000.
'Buying the home was a pure fluke,' Mr Orth said.
'We were driving by and saw it was an open house, so we thought we'd come in and sort of practice trying to buy a home.
'We put in a bid in, not thinking we'd get it, but we did.'
'Tangible relief': rate cut imminent
Mr Orth said saving for a deposit in a constantly shifting market was the hardest part of getting onto the property ladder.
'We started saving pre-Covid, but house prices just kept going up,' he said.
'We had to bite the bullet and get into the market, because if we kept waiting we would need to keep saving more and more.'
Now the couple have a mortgage, they are hoping for a rate cut come May 20.
'My oath, that would be lovely,' Mr Orth said.
'Just paying interest alone is $750 a week.
'Any savings we get from a rate cut, we'll be able to put back into the principal.'
Mr Orth said considering a drop in interest rates may result in prices surging further, he was relieved they had managed to buy now.
'If that happened, we couldn't buy in Caboolture,' he said
'I was already preparing to move further out to around Kilcoy, travel for work and change the kids' school before we managed to get this house.'
Mr Orth, a carpenter and electrician said he and his wife chose an older property on a big block so they could add value to it.
'We're turning it into the house we want,' he said.
'You have to do it that with how the market is – you can't buy the house you want if you want a decent yard, too.
'Our goal is to bring the value of house up, so if the market does go down we're still paying a good price for the house.'
