How Goal-Setting Moved Us Into Our Dream House In Our 20s

At the end of the Rugby season in August 2019 my girlfriend and I booked a quiet weekend away. A couple of months earlier I moved to New Zealand and we thought it was time to set goals for the future. Not the average type of “goals”:

• Choosing a sunny South European country in which to spend the two-week holiday a year.
• Where to celebrate New Year’s.
• A 2% pay raise from the boss.

No, setting big meaningful goals and writing them down. This was uncharted territory for us and probably for most people.

According to author and speaker Brian Tracy, less than 3% of people have written down goals, and less than 1% review and rewrite their goals on a daily basis. Sounds crazy right?

Goals enable you to do the work you want to do, to live where you want to live, to be with the people you enjoy, and to become the kind of person you want to become. - Brain Tracy

A goal is like a destination at the end of a journey. Many roads lead to the destination:

• Rough roads
• Smooth roads
• Long roads
• Short roads
• Beautiful roads
• Scary roads

A meaningful destination can make even the roughest of roads worth the journey. No goal, no direction, just aimless driving (and maybe on a rough road in circles).

The full list of big goals we keep for ourselves, as you should do too. They are your personal goals.

But one goal on the list we wrote down, made a plan for, worked on, and completed in 16 months was living in a nice, solid house with space and in a safe neighbourhood with ideally an asset.

I can now happily say we are living in an amazing house on a 1000m2+ section, with a pool, in a safe neighbourhood and an asset that pretty much pays the mortgage.

I will break down how we got there from owning nothing to owning our dream house in 16 months in this article so you can work towards living in your dream home too.

Problem

Some people maybe aspire to live in a small squeaky house where the paint peels off the outside walls located in a rough unsafe neighbourhood and see often very questionable cars stopping for 5 minutes and driving off shortly after (you can guess what happens during that time). Oh, and loud music day and night. I know for sure we didn’t want that!

Well, the problem was, as starters in our 20’s, that was the only house we could afford…

The bank’s requirements for giving a mortgage were quite simple: as a starter, you need to put down a 10% deposit of the value of the house and after that, they look at your salary to see if you can pay the mortgage back.

Research

We searched for different ways to not have to start in a house we disliked.

We even asked multiple real estate agents if they could let us know as soon as a bargain came on the market. In other words, hoping that a cheap amazing house comes on the market and that nobody else put an offer in. Well, we learned quickly, that was delusional.

Multiple real estate agents and even a successful investor gave us all the same advice: “You just have to get on the property ladder”.

We did not know what it meant. How they explained it was:

"Getting on the property ladder" refers to buying your first home or property. It means that buying a property is usually seen as the first step to creating wealth or financial security. It's like climbing a ladder. As people climb the property ladder, they purchase more valuable or bigger homes. This is often done by selling their current home and using the profits to fund their next purchase.

We decided to take on the advice from the experts.

Still a little reluctant, but more optimistic, we gathered ALL the savings we had and put it in the deposit of our first house.

That was a painful move, mainly because of the unknown, but we tried to keep our spirits high by saying to ourselves: “It cannot be that bad”.

House 1

Our offer got accepted and we moved in at the beginning of February 2020.

Remember I said that we kept saying to ourselves “It cannot be that bad”? Well, it was THAT bad. After the first nights, we felt completely devastated…

We could not sleep because of the loud music from neighbours, we felt unsafe and the house urgently needed renovating but we had no money because of the deposit we had to pay. We felt unsafe and completely stuck with no money. Not a nice feeling I can tell you.

Oh, and then Covid hit a month later. That uncertainty threw gasoline on the fire:

• What’s going to happen?
• Do we keep our jobs and are we able to pay for the mortgage?
• Will the house prices drop and put us in deep debt?

Like many people, we had lots of questions that nobody was able to answer.

On the day of the lockdown announcement, we went to the hardware store and used our recent salary to buy building materials. Our plan was to renovate our house during our spare time.

Looking back, the start of the lockdown, with that the start of the renovations was a turning point. We changed our way of thinking from feeling really upset to feeling motivated to fix up the house as fast as we can. Our goal is to make it worth more money and hopefully sell it for a profit. Then we can move on to the next house.

I will break down the whole process of renovating the house in a separate article.

It ended up working out. Within 8 months, we renovated the house in our spare time, sold it for a good 5-figure profit which enabled us to buy a better property.

End result:

 

House 2

We sold our first house before we found a new house. We were just motivated to move on. It was a gamble because we did not know if something would come across our path.

A classic Ready → Fire → Aim move.

After the 6 week lockdown in March and April, New Zealand was more-or-less back to normal. Only without tourists.

The real estate market in late 2021 was very competitive. We would put in an offer on a listed house for the asking price + $10,000 for example and get crushed by an asking price + $100,000 offer. Kind of crazy times.

We ended up buying our second house “off the market” for a good price (meaning, it was not listed with any real estate agency). Some can say that is “lucky”. We say that is “probability”. Also a topic for another article.

It all ended up working out well and we were able to move in 4 weeks after we sold our first house.

This was a bigger squeaky house where the paint peeled off the outside walls. But at least it was located in a safe neighbourhood and we did not see often very questionable cars stopping for 5 minutes and driving off shortly after. So an improvement! The next step on the ladder.

Lots of renovation work was required. New bathrooms, kitchen renovation and all surfaces needed attention.

I will break down the whole process of renovating the house in a separate article.

Within 8 months, we renovated the house in our spare time as we did with house 1, and sold it for a good 6-figure profit which enabled us to buy an even better property.

Although the house was reasonably comfortable living, it was cold and hard to heat up and there was no garage. Time to go up the ladder again.

End result:

House 3

We sold our second house before we bought a new house again.

Ready → Fire → Aim.

But this time we had our eyes on a property that was on the real estate market. We fell in love with it as soon as the real estate agent showed us the front yard. I said to my girlfriend, this is it.

I believe a few times in life, you get that strong good gut feeling about something. This was one of those times.

We arranged to settle on our second house a day earlier than our dream house. This allowed us to make a cleaner offer with fewer conditions (big gamble).

Monday AM: last chance for buyers to put in an offer on our house 2.

Monday PM: we opened offers and took the best offer with the least conditions (not the highest).

Tuesday AM: put in our offer with the best possible conditions for the owners of our dream house.

Tuesday PM: our gamble worked out. We were the new owners of our dream house.

We were all in, and it worked out. That was the most amazing feeling. We spent 16 months renovating in our free time and living among building materials. Finally, our hard work paid off.

We reached our goal! A nice, solid house with space, in a safe neighbourhood, with an asset (Airbnb) that pays off most of the mortgage. And a nice bonus: a pool!

Conclusion

Setting big meaningful goals and writing them down can lead to significant accomplishments.

The journey was not easy, we encountered several challenges along the way. Too many for this article. However, by

• Focusing on the goal
• Working hard in our spare time
• Being okay with temporary discomfort
• Selling each house for a higher profit
• Gambling by going multiple times all in

we were able to move up the property ladder and ultimately reach our set goal. We even consider this achievement life-changing. With the equity we built, we now have many options for the future.

The key take aways from this journey that can help you on your journey:

• We cannot stay comfortable and expect big impactful things to happen us.
• We need to set a big meaningful goal to get us through uncomfortable times.
• We achieve ambitious goals through determination, perseverance, and a willingness to take risks.
• Take advice from people that are ahead of you (not on the same level or lower) like a successful investor.
• If things don’t work out, it’s likely because you’re not 100% committed (be honest with yourself).
• A ready, fire, aim approach brings urgency to your journey and stops procrastination.

Now go set a big meaningful goal, plan how to achieve it and work on it daily until you reach the goal and let it change your life!