Jemma
I first heard about Liberty Trust from my Uncle John when I was 21 years old. It sounded like a great opportunity but at that time I was convinced I was going to be a missionary in India and never imagined owning my own home in New Zealand. Long story short - I went to India and realised that it was not where I was meant to be. I started my Liberty Trust account when I was 23 years old and started putting in $20 a week initially. As my pay increased I started contributing more. By the time I was 33 I had a lovely partner, a teenage stepdaughter and I was ready to buy my own home.
We started looking for a house in 2020 while living in a tiny apartment and applied for three houses and were outbid each time. House prices kept going up and up and I was losing faith that we would ever be able to buy our own home. We went away over New Years and went to an open home the day we got back. We loved the location and the view and although the house needed a lot of work it had good bones and my partner is a builder so he could see the potential.
But our bank pre approval had lapsed and I didn't have time to get organised before the deadline so I didn't put in an offer. On the day of the deadline sale the real estate agent called me asking why I hadn't put in an offer.
I explained that I didn't have time to do the pre-approval, LIM and building report, due diligence etc. She told me she was going to extend the time by two hours and suggested I put an offer in with lots of conditions (the opposite of what we had been recommended by everyone else). So I offered the asking price and put all the conditions on. I didn't have time to talk to a lawyer or our mortgage broker or anything! She called me back two hours later to say we had won! We were shocked! It was a miracle.
Things got even more miraculous from there. After we had sorted all the legal stuff I got a call from the owner congratulating us on the purchase of the house and my pregnancy. I thanked her and told her that although we planned to have a family in that home I wasn't pregnant. I laughed it off at the time, but a few weeks later I did a test and I was pregnant!
As my Liberty Trust loan wasn't ready at that time we got a mortgage from the bank for the full amount. When it was available we had to fight hard to get it over the line. The bank put up a fight and made it very difficult. It took a year of constant battles, three different lawyers and a lot of prayer and faith to finally get half of the mortgage transferred to our interest-free loan with Liberty Trust. I hope to transfer the rest of the loan to Liberty Trust in the future which will provide us even more financial freedom and security. For now I am incredibly grateful.
When we bought the house our interest rate was at an all time low of 1.55%. Now our bank interest rate has gone up to 7.5% and 8.5%! The difference per month is huge! If we had not had half of the loan with Liberty Trust we would not have been able to keep up with our mortgage repayments at these higher interest rates. We may have had to sell the house. Instead, I now have a home with my lovely partner, step-daughter and baby with room for the family to grow. We have been slowly renovating the house and have managed to double glaze two rooms and completely renovate the master bedroom.
We love our home, our land and the opportunity to make it our own.
We have loads of plans for how we will continue to repair, renovate and improve the house and the land.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Jemma