Lisa & Reuben

Reuben and I joined Liberty Trust shortly after we were married.  We had known of the trust for some time and knew that with our limited income it could, in time, help towards purchasing our first home.  Over the years we often looked at ways of buying a home but with no deposit to speak of and only contributing the minimum to the trust we wondered how this was ever going to happen. We watched house prices rise and lending becoming stricter and things looked grim.  We had no chance of raising a 20% deposit.  But we just kept trusting God and being grateful that we had a roof over our heads at all.  When our loan was finally offered, we were in no position to use it so we put it on hold and continued to contribute. 

And then one day we were offered a home by a family member.  It was a generous offer we had to take seriously but we still worried that we didn't have enough finance.  We had to give them an answer however and with the combined finance of the Liberty Trust and KiwiSaver, we approached the bank just to see if we were eligible for a mortgage to make up the difference.  It took a bit of explaining that we had an interest-free loan!  To be honest, I genuinely thought it was just a meeting, but by the end of it we were swept into the process of buying a house!  It certainly has not been easy, but I underestimated how it feels to no longer be at the mercy of the rental market.  The value of the Trust is this - each month we watch our bank mortgage decrease and increase again when interest is added.......but the interest-free loan just steadily goes down.  That feels a whole lot better!

Lisa & Reuben

28 October 2018