‘We wouldn't be in this position without them’ ‒ how six rent-free years made two 26-year-olds homeowners
Saturday, 11 April 2026
Shuli Arymowicz and Claire Gellert are having the best time roaming the homeware aisles of big box retailers: After all, the young couple have a whole house to fill.
Arymowicz and Gellert, both 26, have been homeowners as of mid-March, after boarding with Gellert’s parents for years while they saved a deposit.
The couple have bought a new four-bedroom, two and a half-bathroom townhouse in Point England, Auckland, paying $950,000. Prior to move-in day, the only household items they owned were a desk, a bed, computers and “lots of kitchen stuff” because Arymowicz trained as a chef.
Among their Ikea purchases are a couch, TV stand, shelves and all of their curtains.
“We got lots of Boxing Day deals,” Shuli says. “Between The Warehouse, iFurniture and Ikea, we’ve done pretty well.”
Their new home is still sparsely furnished. As Gellert says: “There’s not much on the walls. We have the things we need now, but things we don’t need just yet can wait.”
Their new home has a small fenced section at the front, and is right beside a public park - both a huge benefit for their dog, Olive, a labradoodle.
The couple were high school sweethearts, and have been together for nine years. They’ve been saving for a deposit most of that time.
As Gellert says, it took until 2025 before they reached a point where their savings, including within KiwiSaver, meant they could “do something with it”.
That meant a 10% deposit, or $95,000, and they accessed a home loan for the remainder through TSB.
Although they have drained their KiwiSavers, which some financial commentators are against as it depletes retirement savings, both say they feel good knowing they’ll have paid-off housing in later years, and that they have plenty of time to refill the retirement coffers.
They are both extremely grateful to Gellert’s parents who allowed them to live together in their Kohimarama home for six years (for Arymowicz, all her life for Gellert) without paying board.
“They very generously let us stay for free,” Gellert says. “We wouldn’t be in this position if they hadn’t allowed us to do that.”
While both have jobs, neither are super-high paying. Gellert is an animal trainer, a part-time role which she supplements with another job, and Arymowicz is the assistant store manager of a supermarket.
Gellert intends to get full time work when she can.
They have one flatmate who will pay $250 a week (plus costs), helping with the mortgage payments, and because the house has four bedrooms, they have room for another flatmate if necessary.
They appreciated the help of Hamish McMillan, who works with mortgage broker Linda Eagleton at Loan Market.
“He was absolutely incredible,” Gellert says. “We had no idea what we were getting into, myself especially and he explained everything in the simplest terms. He’s a calming presence.”
He helped them check affordability, and reassured them when they inevitably felt some anxiety about the financial commitment.
“He’d run the numbers and he kept saying, ‘I’m not going to tell you anything you can’t afford to do.’”
McMillan said more young people should meet with advisors “to see if they can realistically look at buying a house, or determine what they need to achieve to get there”.
He said it was common for young people to receive help from their parents, as Gellert had, although more often in the form of gifted funds towards a deposit.
“It can be hard to build a deposit while you're young. We see a lot of parents using the nest egg they've built over years to support their kids into their first home.”
Shuli says it feels great to own their own home. “My dad’s in real estate - he has a few rentals and things, mostly in Canada. So I see it as security. And of course, rather than paying someone else’s mortgage, you’re paying your own.”
Gellert says she’s loving “having a space that’s ours and that we can do whatever we want with”.
“If we went into renting, that would be less and less possible.”