How I Manifested My Dream Home With $70k To Spare

A bit of magic, a lot of persistence.

I moved into my dream home about nine months ago and, full disclosure, it needs a lot of work. But this 125 year old cottage is my dream and it felt wildly out of reach just one year ago. Here’s how I made it happen.

The back story

I got my heart set on living in one of the smallest and most expensive neighbourhoods in my little Australian city right before COVID. My partner and I had started renting there and I decided I never wanted to leave.

Of course, COVID hit and house prices went through the roof. We went to home open after home open and houses just seemed to get further and further out of our reach.

We put an offer on one house and missed out by $10k. Every time I worked on manifesting my dream home I would try to let this regret go but I held on to it for a really long time.

Not long after that, we bought a townhouse. I knew this wasn’t our forever home but we wanted to be in this neighbourhood and it seemed like a better option than renting.

I got pregnant (another manifestation story for different day) and we had our first baby in that home. Then I got pregnant again and we decided it was time to get serious about finding a family home.

By this stage, prices had increased even more. We went to more home opens and walked out completely disheartened by how much these places were going for.

The exciting part

My sister, who lives in the same suburb, told me about her neighbour selling his house off market but the price was still beyond what we could afford, so we didn’t even bother getting in touch with the owner. We started expanding our search to suburbs far and wide.

About eight months later, my sister told me her neighbour still hadn’t sold his house. We knew it was still too expensive for us but we thought we might as well look at it.

We got in touch and when we walked through, the owner told us the price was 100k lower than what he had told my sister earlier that year.

The place needed a lot of work (like… three thorough cleans before we could even move in plus a whole lot of paint) but we saw the potential. I had family on the street. It backed on to a park. It had history and beautiful bones. We called him an hour later and made an offer.

The scary part

The next day, his real estate agent called us and organised a time to get our offer in writing. It was accepted, but of course, our offer was subject to the sale of our townhouse.

We lived in a row of identical townhouses and six weeks earlier, one of those had been on the market but didn’t sell. We knew we needed ours to sell for $750k or we wouldn’t be able to afford the deposit on the new house. To say I was nervous was an understatement.

At this stage, I decided it was time to start an intensive gratitude practice so I dusted off my copy of The Magic by Rhonda Byrne. The first time I did this I got pregnant after 18 months of trying. I was ready for another miracle and I got it.

We had three (!!!) offers within five days of it going on the market. One was $800k cash, another was $820k subject to the sale of their home. Just six weeks earlier a home identical to ours had been taken off the market because it wouldn’t sell for $750k! I couldn’t believe it. But I was torn between the two best offers, we needed it to go through by a certain date so cash was preferable, but $20k is a lot of money.

Instead of rushing into a decision, we told the real estate agent to see if we could get a higher cash offer. I got off the phone and visualised getting the good news, then I let it go and went out to dinner with my family. 24 hours later we had a cash offer for $820k. $70k more than we needed to make our dream a reality.

The steps I took

Gabrielle Henderson

I journaled and got very clear on what I wanted. Ever since I decided I wanted to buy a home in this neighbourhood, I had a section in my ‘dream life’ document about my home. I focused on where I wanted it to be and the kind of home I wanted to live in - a place where friends and family visit often, with a big kitchen for cooking, an outdoor area for entertaining and a big luxurious bathroom with a freestanding tub.

I got a granny flat where you can often find friends and family visiting and a big (albeit old) kitchen. The outdoor area was teeny but all it took was one weekend to turn it into a big open space where we often have friends and family over for dinner with kids running around. The bathroom is anything but luxurious and there is most certainly no freestanding tub. Some might say I didn’t get the dream home, but I know my perfect bathroom is coming when we renovate, and I will get to choose every last detail in my little sanctuary.

I visualised my dream home when I meditated. Not every single day for three years, not even every week, but relatively regularly I would picture myself in my family home. I didn’t have many specifics about how it would look, but I often visualised big trees and I thought it would be impossible to live in the city and have trees like this in your backyard. My home backs on to a park and when I sit on my back steps in the morning with a coffee in hand, those giant trees are what I look at.

I let go of the regret I felt about not offering a higher amount on the first house we tried to buy. It took me a really long time to stop beating myself up about this, but every time I walk past that house now I feel such a sense of relief that we didn’t get it.

I was grateful for what I already had. We lived in the area we wanted to be in, we were in a secure complex where I felt safe and everything was taken care of by building managers. It was the place I brought my first baby home to, where he learned to walk and talk. It was the place I got pregnant for a second time. There was plenty to be grateful for.

I took action! I saved and budgeted. I scoured real estate websites. I went to more home opens than you can imagine. I spoke to people in the neighbourhood and beyond. I expanded the search in case the universe had other plans for me.

I surrendered. I had done everything I could. There was no way I could have saved more or become eligible for a bigger mortgage without taking a job that didn’t align with my values. It was time for me to stand back and let the universe show me what it had it in store for my family - a house that was rundown but very liveable and going for a few hundred thousand dollars below market price.

That’s how I found my little slice of heaven. I’ll go into more detail about the steps I took to sell our townhouse in another post so hit subscribe if you want to hear about that, and in the meantime, I’d love to hear what steps you’ve taken to take a big ticket item from your wish list and turn it into reality.

Until next time,

A