finance

Young Aussie shares the tricks to owning a $1 million home by the time you're 30.

Once upon a time an early thirties couple buying their first home wouldn’t have been newsworthy, but with the property market so painfully geared against young Australians, it’s certainly an achievement.

Gabi Stephen, 31, and her husband Joey, 36, have just bought a $1.1 million two bedroom place together, in Manly no less.

The sustainability consultant says it wasn’t rich parents or sheer dumb luck that got her their either.

She credits her new home to thinking ahead and sensible investment, made possible by a lifetime of saving, and has shared her tips for other millennials without being all Bernard Salt about it.

Gabi and Joey just bought a $1.1 million home. No, really. Source: Facebook

“I lived with my parents and worked all the way through high school and did part time jobs," Gabi told the Daily Telegraph.

"Even when I went travelling and did seasons in the snow in Japan and Canada I worked the whole time.

"My earnings went in to savings. Half of my tax back each year would be spent on travelling and the rest would go in to savings>"

The former events manager saved up $20,000 in her teens and twenties, which she used as a deposit for a $190,000 studio in a residential complex in Pennant Hills.

Andrew Winter discusses the property market on Can't Live Without:

She began renting it out immediately.

"At first I was charging $290 per week in rent and breaking even, but each year I was able to put the rent up until I was making $1000 extra on top of the rent," she said.

She combined the extra funds with additional savings, allowing her and her partner to get a deposit on their new place, meanwhile her unit is expected to fetch and additional $100,000 at auction on Saturday.

“I wouldn’t have been able to get a property loan if it wasn’t for Pennant Hills. It hasn’t been a burden to me in the slightest," she said.

"In your 20s you don’t necessarily want to be thinking about being tied down to a mortgage, but it is so important to make these decisions when you are young."

For some house-spiration check on the Obamas new $7 million Washington pad: