Selling our Aussie dream.

Selling our Aussie dream to travel Australia.

It’s a crazy thought, and a decision that could have some less than ideal consequences for us in the future. To be considering selling our home is troubling because, for me, long-term security starts with having a home that, short of failing to keep up with mortgage repayments, will always be ours—no matter what happens we have the security of knowing we have our home.

Like most Australians, I see home ownership as the Aussie dream—or at least, to have a mortgage and be on your way to owning your own home. For me, I suppose that comes from growing up when, things weren’t great, financially, and by my parents no longer owned their own home. The family budget was challenging to the extent that the places we lived in were very much on the lower end—most of those places were rented directly from the property owner. For my parents, that meant cheaper rent, and with that came forgoing some privacy—just little things that reminded you that you’re living in someone else’s home. For instance, one was a very run-down Queenslander on 40 acres, and the owners would come and go every now and then as they pleased, unannounced. The 40 acres was great fun to grow up on though, with plenty of secluded bushland to go and explore for hours on end. The house we moved into after that was owned by an elderly bloke. No real issues there either, but come rent collection day, he would never come to the front door. Instead, always walking around the side of the house, unannounced, to come and knock on the back door to collect rent money, where he’d more often than not scare Mum senseless as he appeared out of nowhere. Harmless enough, but again, just a reminder that what you have isn’t really yours. I’m probably being a little melodramatic, but in any case, that, along with experiencing what it’s like to have your own home, and lose it, offers a little insight as to why home ownership is a big deal for me. For Alicia though, she seems to be less attached to owning a home, at least at this stage, and is open to whatever might be the more ideal option. For all my own insecurities about home ownership, though, I need to keep all options open because it seems that selling up may be the only way we are able to finance this dream of ours. And even there, we have some problems that we’ll need to work around, namely if we need to sell to finance the van, how do we secure a van before we sell? And, if we sell to purchase the van, where do we live whilst we’re in the transition between moving out of the home and getting the van. What do we do with all of our “stuff”? How do we time selling furniture and the like when we’ll need such things right up until the point of moving into a van?

We set up a call with our mortgage broker, and we quickly learned exactly what was needed in order to put our little plan into action. The conversation didn’t go as we’d hoped, as we soon discovered that options for financing the van using equity in the home were limited. Well there was just one option, actually, and that involved Alicia going back to work. And in a case of “how bad do you want it”, well, it turns out not that badly. The decision for Alicia to not return to work was made easily and early in the first few months of bringing Alina into the world—from experience there’s just way too much you miss out on, and kids grow up before you know it, by which time you’re left with thoughts of “if only, and we should have”. And so, after many a discussion, Alicia and I came to the conclusion that if travelling Australia in a caravan is what we want, we would need to sell the home to make it happen. Our conversations again turn to what is it we’re hoping to achieve? What’s our goal? What is it we want out of this? And for whatever that turns out to be, can we be certain it will all be worth it? We’re in a period where we bought at the right time and property prices have increased significantly—we stand a lot to gain, but selling now and spending a good portion of that on a dream will likely see us not being able to afford to buy our own home when we’re done with travel. It’s time for some deep contemplation…