Family who don’t want to ‘eat baked beans for dinner every night’ forced to sell dream home they spent seven years building thanks to sky-high interest rates
Celeste Andrews has been forced to sell the family home in Avondale Heights, VIC
She and her husband spent seven years designing the home and moved in in 2020
Rising interest rates meant that the family of four had to change their lifestyle
They have since put their home on the market with a $1.25 million price guide
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A family with two young children have been forced to sell the dream home they have spent years building after struggling to cope with sky-high interest rates.
Celeste Andrews recently put her four-bedroom home in Avondale Heights, in Melbourne’s north-west, on the market with a price guide of $1.15 million to $1.25 million.
The family had spent seven years planning the construction of the house and only moved in two years ago.
But six consecutive monthly increases in the cash rate, which as of Tuesday stood at a nine-year high of 2.6 per cent, meant Ms Andrews and her family had to make major changes to their lifestyle.
“We can still pay the interest, but what a compromise it will be for our family, so it was more like our hand was forced,” the mother of two shared. 7 News.
Celeste Andrews has put her four-bedroom home in Avondale Heights, in Melbourne’s north-west, on the market with a price guide of $1.15 million to $1.25 million.
‘Ideally we don’t want to sell, but we don’t want to eat baked beans and spaghetti every night for dinner and not go out anywhere.
‘We want to take our children on holidays and trips.’
The RBA’s 0.25 percentage point increase on Tuesday was less than market expectations for a 0.5 percentage point rise.
But the ANZ bank said the smaller RBA hike would simply mean rate rises will continue into 2023 rather than ending in 2022 during this monetary tightening cycle.
ANZ’s head of Australian economics, David Plank, updated the bank’s forecasts to see the Reserve Bank’s cash rate reach an 11-year high of 3.6 per cent by May 2023.
The family had spent seven years planning the construction of the house and only moved in two years ago
Mrs Andrews said she did not want to sell but “our hand was forced”
Ms Andrews’ real estate agent, David Gigliotti, of Moonee Valley Real Estate, said he knew of other families who were considering selling given the cash rate hikes.
“There’s definitely been a taste from people that it’s all getting a bit too much,” he told Daily Mail Australia.
He said the Andrews’ home was designed by them from scratch and the family had no intention of selling.
“They put everything into it, it’s what they dreamed of, so it’s a bit of a sad time for them,” he said.
‘They don’t want to sell, they have to.’
He said the home had already generated a lot of interest, with 47 people attending the open home before it goes to auction on Oct. 22.
The Avondale Heights home goes up for auction on October 22
“Whoever buys it will be able to enjoy a home where a lot of thought and effort has gone into it,” Mr Gigliotti said.
The agent advised people in similar situations to hang on to their homes ‘as long as you can’.
“But at the end of the day, if it affects your quality of life, selling may be the only option,” he added.