First Home Buyer Series: Deposit Stage

Our first home buyers share their firsthand experiences around:

• The email marketing they received
• The connect between their online and offline experience putting down a deposit
• Who they put their trust in to fill knowledge gaps

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Read the Transcript

Erica Sachse:

During that period, while you had your deposit down, where you know, you’re waiting for your land title, did they – did the estate provide you updates around…?

Ashlea Guest:

No.

Andrew Guest:

No.

Ashlea:

Nothing at all.

Erica:

Nothing at all?

Ashlea:

Nothing at all.

Andrew:

Yeah, it’s always sort of, if you – if you contact them about, they’re always, maybe a couple of weeks.

Ashlea:

Yeah

Andrew:

Or something like that. Just to stop you calling, I think.

Ashlea:

Yeah, I don’t think – we didn’t contact them that much. Like, we knew we were in for a bit of a wait.

Andrew:

Yeah, that’s it.

Ashlea:

We knew that it was going to take time. So we just – I think towards the end, I got pretty cranky, but for the first sort of four months of delay, we were just…

Andrew:

This is normal.

Ashlea:

Yeah, we really didn’t harass them too much and you get like emails from them occasionally but it wasn’t – it’s more about selling more land to you, rather than like updates of what you’re getting on your own land so, yeah.

Erica:

In the ideal world, would’ve you like to seen that progression a little bit more?

Ashlea:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Ashlea:

Absolutely.

Andrew:

It would’ve been nice to get a realistic date and…

Ashlea:

Yeah and ‘cause you doing… it’s the biggest purchase – one of the biggest purchases of your life .

Andrew:

You don’t want to be left hanging in the loop…

Ashlea:

It would’ve been really nice… Yeah.

Andrew:

…about anything really.

Ashlea:

To be kept updated or be like “Hey look, we know it’s gonna be delayed this much,” instead of being like, “Ahh, maybe…” You know, to have more of a definite… What’s the word I’m looking for? End of the light… end of the tunnel!

Erica:

Timeline, updates…

Ashlea:

Yeah, yeah. Would’ve been better.

Erica:

And did you go and visit your land?

Andrew and Ashlea:

Oh yeah, yeah.

Ashlea:

All the time.

Erica:

How often would you visit your land?

Andrew:

Not as often as some other people would.

Ashlea:

As other people.

Andrew:

Because at first, we couldn’t even work out where it was because it was just a paddock.

Ashlea:

It was just a paddock, yeah.

Andrew:

And we were like, are we, are standing on our land? I think we are.

Ashlea:

I think when we put the deposit on the land, we went down to the actual – where we thought it might be. Which we weren’t close at all.

Andrew:

No.

Erica:

Okay, so you were kind of visiting the land and then it finally gets to the point where it settles.

Ashlea:

Yep.

Erica:

And were there – how was the communication around that? Did you guys understand what that meant? Were you – were you anticipating or did you know it was happening?

Ashlea:

Yeah, I think so.

Andrew:

Sort of. We kind of left it a bit up to the major building company we went with.

Ashlea:

We let them sort of deal with it and sort of correspond.

Andrew:

Yeah, and they were very good with keeping us in the loop very early on.

Ashlea:

Yeah.

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