Leasing With Love&Co: Matt and Rachel’s Story
Northside newbies, Matt and Rachel’s accidental love story began in a bar while attempting to set up their friends.
A year into their relationship, they bought an investment property in Reservoir together with Love&Co, swiftly leased it out, and then moved in themselves! Today, we sit down with them for the lowdown on why Reservoir makes them tick, and how Love&Co were such an important part of their homeownership journey.
Love&Co: So you guys aren’t from the north are you?
Matt & Rachel: No, no, we grew up around the east – Ringwood, Doncaster. Then we both lived in Templestowe for a while, and now Reservoir.
Love&Co: What are two surprising and delighting things about Reservoir?
Rachel: Oh, the cafés. I was actually really surprised that there’s a few trendy cafés in the area, which is awesome. We love being able to go out for breakfast and not having to travel far. We’ve got lots of really awesome places to go to. That’s definitely one of the big bonuses for us. It’s quiet, which is nice. We’re in a family-friendly street. The lake’s beautiful, as well, and Reservoir is close to the city.
Matt: The restaurants are better than I thought. Just getting to places like Northcote and stuff where we go out and catch up with friends, it’s not far at all.
Love&Co: Can you tell us about your property journey? It was your first home, so how did you find the saving and mortgage process?
Matt: That was difficult, because I’d only had one year of financials for my business at the time. That was partly the reason why we had to have it as an investment property to start off with. During that time, Love&Co got us a tenant for six months – which ticked me over into my second year of business. Then we got to go back to the bank with the new financials and Rachel’s wage and got looked upon a bit more favourably.
Love&Co: What advice would you give first home buyers about getting your stuff sorted for finance?
Matt: Go to the bank first before you even look at houses and find out what you can borrow, and then start looking. It can put you out a bit if you’ve got an idea in mind of what you might be able to borrow, and then you go to the bank and find out you won’t get anywhere near that.
Love&Co: Why did you choose to lease with Love&Co?
Matt: So we bought it through Love&Co. They did a great job, they knew the property already, so, yeah, we were confident that they would find us a tenant – and they did. We wanted a six month tenancy, and they were really confident about getting one – which can be very difficult – and they did achieved that almost immediately. It was a great choice to work with Love&Co.
Rachel: We felt looked after. Knowing that your property’s cared for and making good decisions about who’s living in your house, that’s really important.
Love&Co: How many homes did you look at before you bought?
Matt: My parents knew Michael and mentioned to him that I’d had a look at a couple of houses – just to gauge the market, really. About a week later, he rang me and said, “You’re buying this house!”. Michael is a person with unique focus – the things he promises, he delivers.
Love&Co: What was your understanding of the negotiation process, and was it clear to you as a buyer?
Matt: I had a lot of trust in Love&Co. As far as negotiations went, they told us the price that the vendor wanted, and the price seemed very reasonable to us. I felt straight away they weren’t trying to take advantage. We were very comfortable with the negotiation – and it was within our budget.
Love&Co: What happened on the day that you bought it? What did you do to celebrate?
Rachel: I think I was a bit nervous. Like I said, we’d only been in a relationship for a year. I started to panic a little bit afterwards, but at the same time, I was quite rapt, as well. That panic subsided pretty quickly!
Matt: It didn’t seem completely real to me, and then I think it was Rachel’s birthday, we were out and then I was like, “Let’s have a cheers, because we now own a house.” I got pretty excited from there on.
Love&Co: What happened between purchase and settlement? What were the processes you had to go through?
Matt: We were still going back and forward with the bank, just trying to make sure everything was finalised. It was actually a pretty crazy time. I think we fell just short of what we agreed to, so it was a frantic time to try and come up with some cash. It was quite a stressful time between the purchase and settlement. Once we signed the contract of sale, we knew we were committed, and then we had to do everything in our power to make it all happen.
Love&Co: Did your broker help you?
Matt: Our broker did the best job he could. Yeah, he was really good and helped out as much as he could. Mum and Dad helped out any way they could. I think once that was all done and settlement day hit, then there was a feeling of relief and then, “Okay, now we have a huge loan!”
Rachel: Yeah, I think that was another stress as well. I lived with my mum until I was 28, so I was scared about mortgage repayments and having to make them.
Love&Co: But you’ve made it!
Rachel: Yeah, it’s just a different headspace to renting. You have an amount of money that goes straight to the mortgage, untouched. And then you continue life as normal. I just set up an automatic deduction from my account every payday, so the day after payday that money comes out, and I don’t see it.
Love&Co: Your lifestyle hasn’t been impacted by property ownership?
Rachel: Not really.
Matt: I think you spend what you have, and you make do if you can’t. You still try and do everything you want to do, but maybe instead of drinking 20 beers, you have 10!
Rachel: Yeah, and probably less holidays and things like that. Compromise.
Matt: Before we started paying our mortgage, we were like, “We can’t ever do Uber Eats, can’t do this, can’t do that,” and then now that we’re property owners nothing’s really changed. We still do far too many Uber Eats!
Love&Co: Lots of people are scared to buy property because of the feeling of being ‘locked down’. Why do you think that is?
Rachel: Its funny because you’re still going to have to pay that money to live somewhere, even if it’s rent. Worst-case scenario, you sell your house and go rent again if that’s what you want to do – which you wouldn’t, once you’ve bought and realised that the mortgage repayments aren’t that bad. You stop thinking about the massive loan that you’ve got.
Love&Co: So what happened when you settled and collected the keys from Love&Co?
Rachel: Champagne and a whole basket of gifts. It was really nice.
Love&Co: That’s good. After you settled, what was that process like? You’d never leased before – did you find it challenging?
Matt: That was the easiest part!
Rachel: It was very smooth sailing.
Matt: We didn’t have to do much, Love&Co took care of everything.
Love&Co: Who was your property manager in that period of time?
Matt: Michael (another Michael from Love&Co!) from the Reservoir office. He was awesome. He was like, “So, you want someone to lease your home for six months?” I could tell he thought that might be a little bit of a challenge, but he leased it very quickly and got the tenants in really quickly. We got great tenants who took care of the property perfectly – no issues at all. That was the easiest part.
Love&Co: How do you feel about real estate now that you’re homeowners? Do you feel like buying your next home or having a property portfolio is a possibility?
Matt: I’ve got a lot more curiosity of the results of other houses that are sold around our area.
Love&Co: Where do you get that information from?
Matt: I search on Google and realestate.com.au. I do a lot of that, and then I consider what ours might be worth. I’m just curious as to where we’re at in the market.
Rachel: My view on real estate now is definitely a lot more positive. Before we purchased, I felt very negatively towards the market – as if I was never going to be able to buy. That was a big concern of mine. Now that I’m actually in the market, the concept of home ownership feels a lot more achievable and a lot less scary. Again, we were really lucky the right thing came up – but I feel we couldn’t have done it without assistance from Love&Co – they were awesome. It has made us curious to think what we’re going to do next. Whether we renovate, sell and buy something else, or buy a second property. I don’t know if that’s achievable just yet, but there are options. Having that feeling that nothing is really impossible – that’s what real estate investment has done for us.
Love&Co: Do you have any concrete real estate plans you’ve been thinking about?
Rachel: To be honest, we initially thought we’d try and renovate and resell in a year. We’re kind of happy where we are at the moment. We’re happy to stay there for a few years, because we quite like the area. We’re in no rush to renovate. We’ve got to save some more, too.
Matt: Everything slowed down once we moved in and we settled, and we were like, “Oh, this is good.” At the start we were like, “We need to get in, tidy it up, and then maybe in a year have a look at what we want to do with it.”
Love&Co: Do you have friends who ask you about your real estate experience?
Matt: A lot of my friends have asked me to get Love& Co to look at properties for them. That’s what they did for us: they knew our budget, knew what we were looking for, and found us a great property straight away.
Love&Co: If you each had one piece of advice to give first home buyers, what would it be?
Rachel: Just be open to considering unexpected areas and property types.
Matt: Be realistic. Don’t set the bar too high. Go to the bank first; find out what you can loan, and then start looking at the houses – instead of looking at houses before you know what you can borrow.