Gail Sutcliffe
mortgage broker
Practical; stress-tests every budget
First Keys
Five years of saving, rising rates and two families with opinions. Zara and Ollie learn the true cost of buying, lose an auction they should never have entered, and have to decide whether renting is the smarter choice for them after all.
Planned · not started yet
Home & housing Money under pressure Hard choices Competing advice City life Family home Hopeful Tense
The premise
Five years of saving, rising rates and two families with opinions. Zara and Ollie learn the true cost of buying, lose an auction they should never have entered, and have to decide whether renting is the smarter choice for them after all.
The protagonist
Zara Pennington-Sefa — Sydney nurse saving with her partner Ollie for a first home
The council
Every council member is an original fictional character. None represents, quotes or is endorsed by a real person.
Dr Ruben Castellanos
housing economist
Sceptical of price-only-goes-up thinking
Neville Ashworth
building inspector
Blunt; reads the cracks
Marisol Teague
long-term renter
Contrarian; values flexibility
How the story moves
The search for a home through a lost auction and a near-mistake; consequences of each decision carry into the next attempt.
What readers take away
- Borrowing capacity and lender serviceability buffers
- Deposits, lenders mortgage insurance and first-home schemes
- Stamp duty and concessions
- Fixed versus variable rates
- Building and pest inspections
- Auctions versus private sales
- Total cost of ownership
- Rent-versus-buy analysis
- Read a contract of sale and section 10.7 certificate
- Negotiate after a building inspection
- Understand cooling-off rights
- Budget for strata or council rates
The books
- 1The deposit Planned
- 2The loan Planned
- 3The inspection Planned
- 4The auction Planned
- 5Settlement Planned
Book titles are working titles and may change before publication. No book is on sale until the complete series is finished, checked and released.