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Auckland property special 2016: On the benefit of hindsight

Auckland property special 2016: On the benefit of hindsight

Oct 5, 2016 Property

Illustration by Angela Keoghan.

You bought a house! Of course you did. Back then — not so long ago, when you think about it — it’s what most of us did. You bought a house because you needed one, because you wanted one. Because you could.

There were always an unlucky few, but for the rest of us, buying a house was just what we did. It’s what was expected of us, and what we expected for ourselves. It was a turning point, and a milestone, and it was so much more than that.

A sanctuary, a comfort, a certainty. A place to call home and a place to come home to. A warm light in a window. A beacon. A nest.

You bought a house! Perhaps, over the years, you even managed to buy a weekend bolthole, too — a little bach on the coast or a simple inland cottage. Nothing fancy — not that it mattered, because it wasn’t about making A Good Investment. In the end — and now that you think about it, even in the beginning — it wasn’t about that at all.

Let’s face it: if buying a house had been about making money, you would never have bought the place. It flouted so many of the investment rules. What were they again? Oh yes, the ones by which we’re meant to live and buy.

It was downright impractical; it was bloody high maintenance. But you didn’t really care.

The house was downright impractical; it was bloody high maintenance. Or too far away, or too noisy, or too… whatever. On paper it was so wrong. But you didn’t care, not really. Because it felt just right.

Do you remember? How it seemed, stepping inside the first time, that this was where you belonged. You could see yourself, you could see what your life here could be, you saw the possibility. It felt like home and so you made it yours, because you could. You chose it, or perhaps it chose you.

You bought a house! A welcome home. Finding the money wasn’t easy, necessarily, but it was possible.

You felt blessed, fortunate, even lucky at the time, and you were. But now, looking back, you see that you didn’t realise just how lucky, not really.

You’re not alone in that. How could we have known then what we know now? We were the lucky ones.

This article is published in the October 2016 issue of Metro, on sale now. 

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It’s our annual, inflation-busting ‘Where to Eat for Less Than $25’ list (with thanks to Uber Eats) issue! PLUS the Summer Books Special and the Auckland Property Report Card (with thanks to Barfoot and Thompson). Also, Sir Bob Harvey looks into the missing treasures in our museums and talks to Jacqui Knight about monarch butterflies. AND NOT ONLY THAT: Emil Scheffmann looks into our secondary art market, Matthew Hooton and Morgan Godfery look into the new government, Jamie Wall into the tennis, Hana Pera Aoake into the Māori response to the war in Palestine and Abby Howells into being the lion in the Wizard of Oz. We also find the 10 Best Bakeries in Auckland, a great recipe for a Japanese Breakfast and the king of the supermarket pasta brands. All this and much, much more.

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