My partner and I were looking for a home for around a year and a half.

Airlie beach was on the up and up, and people from Sydney and Melbourne seemed to be trying to escape dangerous Dan and the city life. The result was to our once quiet little backpacker town that we referred to as Neverland (that kids could rent a room overlooking the beach for 150 per week) became a hot spot for those selling their Muti million-dollar properties in the CBD and surrounds snatching up holiday homes to escape lockdowns.

Things didn’t look good for the locals and the little guys.

We’re in our mid-twenties and it was already difficult to buy a first home before covid. As most of us know who have done our research well enough, in comparison to our parents and grandparents’ things aren’t even similar.

In the nineteen fifties the average wage of a single person per year bought a three-bedroom house with spare change. Interest rates aside with the boomers in the 90’s, it hasn’t become any easier.

For my entire life before meeting Dane I had visited homes with the hope of somehow putting my dream into the universe by saving money and continuing to visit open houses until something happened. I figured I would at least set the goal in motion. Although it seemed quite unlikely on a start-up business and a few shifts at the local bar. Most small towns don’t have large corporations or government organisations to work for so the trade-off for living in the ideal location is often contradicted by the low wages.

Nevertheless, I did pop into a fair few houses on the market around the four-hundred mark. I had talked to several brokers and banks and had been told that since my partner is foreign, they couldn’t count her as an option for the mortgage and with my wage the borrowing limit was about late two hundreds to mid three hundreds if I saved up significantly more. But time was running out in my neighbourhood. Even with a great credit rating, no debt and a guarantor.

The only option for me would have been a rundown apartment. Airlie beach has some of the highest body corporate rates in the world. Average of between fifteen and thirty thousand dollars per year. Before rates, before your mortgage, electricity etc. Meaning once you pay off your apartment, you still have to rent it from the building owner.

Well. I had met Dane about a week earlier. he seemed to think that there was always a way, it’s just the way he’s wired. I had since seen a house pop up on the market, an old Queenslander. Way out of my budget. I feel in love with it and so did my partner. I had never walked into a home and felt like i already owned it. I needed this place.

I told Dane, and he said he would help me out. He told me, and that’s just what he did.

Well, not one moment after my beer at the pub had Dane gotten to work. He negotiated with the home owners, and the real estate agent whom had not given me the time of day prior to Dane showing up. Houses in that suburb were and are selling within two days, and the real estate agents didn’t have to have a copy of the floor plan know anything about the home or anything else. They could have walked in naked and kicked your grandmother and people would have still put in offers. Often above the asking price.

In that market, Dane had them lower the price, add some furniture in to sweeten the deal and make sure everything was in order form the loan, the inspections and legal. Within a month I was realising my dream was a reality.

It was worth every cent, and with the money I saved on the home I was able to pay Dane and Better House Brokers group, have furniture and still have some left over to celebrate the move. I couldn’t believe it.

I could not give Dane or his group enough gratitude.

As Dane explained to me, his father was a spiritual guide of sorts and he is a big believer in karma even in business. He loves to stand up for his clients and give them as much savings as possible because he genuinely cares about them. He would rather have more clients and make less from them than have a small number of clients and make more money.

Thank you Dane and the team at Better House Brokers from the bottom of our hearts. We couldn’t have done it without you!

– Jordan De Mamiel