Mamta would picture herself as a homeowner, but becoming one took a lot more than just a vision.Illustration by The Globe and Mail. Sources: Getty Images
In early 2022, 24-year-old Mamta bought a preconstruction townhouse in Calgary for $420,000.
Looking back, Mamta feels she engineered her reality. During the pandemic, long before she had a mortgage or even knew which neighbourhood she would end up in, she’d picture herself as a homeowner.
Every year, she kept detailed monthly budgets and made a vision board filled with the goals she hoped to achieve – and from 2020 on, buying a home took centre stage.
“I have put a lot of things on my vision board, and I was able to make a lot of them come true,” she said.
In the spring of 2022, Mamta took possession of her newly built three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom home. The journey took a lot more than just a vision.
For about a year leading up to the purchase, she earned roughly $80,000 by juggling two jobs, saving nearly every dollar from one.
While many of her friends were travelling, shopping and enjoying the freedom that came after pandemic restrictions eased, Mamta was carrying homemade lunches, skipping coffee runs and spending evenings and weekends working.
“I was constantly thinking that once I buy a house I will do all these things I want to do,” she said. “Until then, I’m just going to save on every little thing.”
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As an immigrant, she saw how difficult the homeownership journey had been for her family, who purchased their first home in Canada in 2017 after years of renting.
“I wanted to be financially independent, have my own money, have my own home,” she said. “I wanted to start building equity early in my life.”
To reach that goal, she worked full-time for a non-profit while also holding down a part-time position with the city. Income from her day job covered her rent and other living expenses, so she funnelled her second paycheque – around $2,000 a month – entirely into savings.
She estimates doing so for about a year, calling it the strategy that helped her “the most.”
But this was nothing new for Mamta. She’d spent much of her late teens and early 20s balancing multiple jobs while studying. By the time she finished university, she’d worked with a municipal government, a police department and in youth programming.
Mamta directed every paycheque from her second job into a separate savings account. She kept most of the money in cash because she had little investment knowledge at the time, she said.
But first, she needed to wipe out a roughly $25,000 student loan. “If I have debt, I just cannot sleep,” she said. “I was paying interest and I just felt like it was a waste of money.”
To accelerate the process, her dad matched each repayment.
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She also contributed to an RRSP through the Home Buyers’ Plan, allowing her to withdraw the money for her purchase while receiving about a $10,000 tax refund.
Calgary’s heated rental market in 2022 ultimately convinced Mamta it was time to buy. That year, the city’s apartment vacancy rate fell to the lowest since 2014. Facing a rent hike of $300 to $1,500 a month, she decided she was ready to start paying a mortgage.
Buying her first home marked the beginning of several milestones. Since then, Mamta has built a career in real estate, married and moved into a detached house with her husband.
Her first home is now a rental, and she says the income helps it roughly break even each month.
Costs
Purchase price: $420,000
Down payment: 20 per cent ($84,000)
Home inspections: None (new-build preconstruction)
Legal fees: Approximately $1,800.
Moving costs: None (family helped with the move).
Monthly fees: Mamta chose a freehold townhouse, meaning she owns both the home and the land it sits on, so she does not pay any maintenance fees
Mortgage: Approximately $1,775
Utilities: $300
Repairs: None initially (brand-new home under warranty)
Property taxes: Approximately $350
Advice: Accept that your life journey and financial path may look different than that of your friends. “Depending on where you come from and what privileges you have in life, you just have to deal with different things,” Mamta said.
Some details may be changed to protect the privacy of the people profiled. Are you a first-time homeowner who would like to share their story? Send us an e-mail.
