Both earn low wages, yet bought 3 Auckland homes by 30. What is their secret?

Both earn low wages, yet bought 3 Auckland homes by just 30. What is their secret?

 

Mike Gray and his wife Vicky Gray-Kippax were just 19 and 21 respectively when they bought their first home. Now aged 31 and 33, they already own 3 Auckland properties and plan to build their 4th.

 

They were neither born into wealthy families nor employed in senior white-collar roles.

 

Both are bakers at New World supermarkets, and Vicky Gray-Kippax earns only slightly above the minimum wage!

 

So the question is: with Auckland house prices so high, how did they buy 3 properties?

 

An investment-savvy father and a hardworking daughter

 

In 2007, when they were just 19 and 21, they bought their first property: a two-bedroom unit in New Lynn, West Auckland.

 

Auckland house prices had not yet skyrocketed. The property cost NZ$265,000; they borrowed NZ$235,000 and covered the remaining $30,000 from their savings.

 

But how had they managed to save $30,000 at such a young age, on such low wages?

 

Vicky's father had encouraged her to save from an early age. An immigrant from England, he had always owned investment properties.

 

Vicky met her now-husband Mike when she was 16. They shared the same values and both liked saving.

 

“Although I was earning only NZ$14 an hour at the time, we were very good at saving. We rarely ate out or wasted money on crazy things. But we still had plenty of fun and went to concerts. We bought alcohol to drink at home, which cost a tenth as much as going to a bar—a factor of 10.”

 

Vicky said they were living with her parents at the time to care for her mother, who had cancer. They paid rent and contributed to food, internet and other costs. After her mother died, they continued living there to look after her father rather than moving into the property they had bought.

 

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“Dad never gave me money, but he gave me plenty of investment advice. He immigrated from Britain in the '60s and worked hard for everything he had. He always owned investment properties.”

 

 “We paid more off the mortgage than we had to. Most of our wages went towards repayments. Each time we refixed the interest rate, we paid an extra 5%.”

 

 

In 2011, they borrowed from the bank to buy their second property, a 3-bedroom unit in Kelston–Glen Eden. It also cost $265,000, with some extra money spent on renovations.

 

“We didn't spend money on anything too flash. The backyard wasn't great, and the property needed quite a bit of maintenance. But we saw its value as a rental.”

 

Again, they put every dollar they saved towards the mortgage. Those two properties are now worth NZ$480,000 and NZ$500,000, and still have their original tenants.

 

In 2013, Vicky and Mike began looking for a larger home. “We were planning to have children, so we wanted a house. We couldn't live with Dad forever.”

 

They found a three-bedroom home in Glendene priced at $385,000, a substantial sum for them at the time.

 

The couple's 3-bedroom property in Glendene

 

To ease the financial burden, they rented it out for 18 months before moving in. The property is now worth $630,000.

 

After her father died, they moved to Papamoa and rented out the Glendene house too.

 

Using the inheritance from her father, they bought a section in Papamoa, intending to build a new home for their 2 daughters.

 

The couple now have 3 rental properties and NZ$270,000 in mortgage debt, and are still working hard to pay it off.

 

Advice for their peers

 

Reflecting on their experience of buying property, Vicky said they had always thought about the future. “We know the pension won't be enough to live on when we retire.”

 

“Some people criticised me for living with my parents, saying my car and lots of other things were free. But that wasn't true. We paid our parents, cared for my seriously ill mother, and did Dad's washing and cooking. I was working as well. And losing both parents before I was 30 wasn't an easy ride.”

 

After reading about this couple's life and property journey, don't you think they are just as hardworking and resilient as the older generation of Chinese people?!