How this 20-year-old uni student managed to buy her $373,000 home in Melbourne’s inner city during a pandemic
- University student has bought first property at just 20 years of age in Melbourne
- Lucia Milne bought one bedroom apartment in trendy Footscray for $373,400
- The student says she could afford flat using inheritance and help from parents
A university student also juggling two part-time jobs has bought her first property aged just 20 in an increasingly sought-after part of Melbourne.
Lucia Milne paid $373,400 for a one-bedroom apartment in Footscray, in the city’s inner-west, after her parents handed her a five-figure amount following the death of a relative.
‘My grandmother passed away and left a small sum of money – it wasn’t a lot, but enough to pay for a deposit,’ she told news.com.au
While many 20-year-olds would have spent the money on a new car or an overseas trip, Ms Milne took the advice from her parents to put it to better use.
Uni student Lucia Milne (pictured above) is only 20, but she has already bought a property in Melbourne’s trendy inner-west
Lucia’s one bedroom apartment is in Footscray, in Melbourne’s trendy inner-western suburbs
‘Mum and dad said they would rather set me up with a future and give me mortgage history and why pay rent when I can pay off a mortgage, which was incredibly generous and incredibly kind of them,’ she said.
Milne added the family are ‘not affluent at all’ but the her parents saw the small inheritance as a chance to secure their daughter’s future.
‘My grandmother was an architect and she would be very proud and she wouldn’t have wanted her money to go anywhere else,’ Ms Milne said.
Ms Milne, who works two part-time jobs as a barista and administration assistant as well as studying biomedicine at university, said it will be a ‘surreal’ moment when she moves into her own place next month.
She also stated she was ‘very grateful’ and is well aware how ‘lucky she is.’
Milne is currently paying $250 a week living in a share house, so monthly mortgage repayments of $1080 in her own unit ‘made sense.’
According to Finder’s First Home Buyers Report 2021, the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ is involved in a third of all first-home buyer transactions.
Finder says parents are providing financial help either through a deposit, loan or full payment to 32 per cent of first home buyers, amounting for nearly 4,000 ‘kidults’ across Australia.
The comparison website also says the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ is the country’s ninth largest mortgage ‘lender’, handing out $29billion worth of kindness in just the last 12 months alone.
Footscray Park (pictured above) in Melbourne’s inner-west features include rustic stonework, ornamental ponds and extensive use of palms – it is also a favourite meeting place among locals
Nicholson Street in suburban Footscray (pictured above) can lay claim to be the oldest pedestrian mall in Australia
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