After searching for more than five years to buy a home, Sarah Molyneux and husband Steve finally managed to secure a property last week.
She said the overwhelming feeling after buying their new property in Avondale was one of relief.
"No more open houses on the weekends," she laughed.
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However, Mrs Molyneux, 40, and her husband, 45, are under no illusions about making a property purchase in the current interest rate climate.
She said they had already considered and factored in the potential for more interest rate rises when buying.
However, she was "very much" pleased that on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia board decided to leave the cash rate target unchanged at 4.10 per cent.
However, CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless said the RBA had kept the door open for a rate hike in August, citing ongoing concerns around the trajectory of inflation amid tight labour markets and uncertainty relating to the household sector.
"The June quarter inflation outcome, to be released late this month, will be critical in determining whether there are more rate hikes ahead," Mr Lawless said.
The Molyneuxs have a four-year-old child, and have been living in a granny flat in her parents' backyard for the past two years as they continued to save and search for a home to buy.
Their new purchase will be an investment property for at least 12 months, at which time they'll reassess. However, they're hopeful of it being an investment for two years at a maximum.
"The only way we could get enough money from the bank to purchase a property was to buy it as an investment property, so we're still not able to move into it yet," Mrs Molyneux said.
"Otherwise we weren't going to get back into the market."
Mrs Molyneux said looking for a property in the current interest rate climate had forced them to re-evaluate how they were spending and saving.
"We're extremely lucky that we have somewhere to live, but we did lose hope for a little while with the interest rates (going up)," she said.
"I'm not back working full-time yet, so when he goes to Kindergarten I'll probably have to go back full-time."
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Although grateful for this month's rate pause, other recent Illawarra home buyers have had to re-evaluate their wishlist when searching to buy a home after recent rate hikes.
Illawarra-based buyer's agent Jack Corbett, director of Corbett Property Buyers said the Australian dream of owning a home "hasn't gone, it's just changed".
"That's due to affordability," he said. "Everyone has dreams of living on the quarter-acre block, and it's just not possible for some... Our proximity to Sydney makes our area really expensive.
"In my experience, people really don't want to rent, so they would rather change their expectations of what they're willing to buy, versus renting long-term."
He said rising interest rates were "chopping down" buyers' borrowing capacity, but "hasn't changed their appetite to own a home".
For example, a recent Illawarra buyer the Mercury spoke to said they'd had to reconsider their priorities when buying a home amid the current interest rate climate.
The 50-year-old first home buyer said he and his partner had initially planned to buy a house, with a preference for the Figtree area where they had been renting.
However, after a two-year search, they eventually bought a villa in Corrimal last month.
"We were looking for a house for quite a long time, and just had difficulty competing against other people in the market," he said.
Interest rates were also a factor in their decision-making, although he said it didn't affect their borrowing power too much, partially due to having a sizeable deposit.
"The bank said we could borrow more than we (actually) decided we wanted to borrow, because we wanted to leave some flexibility in case rates continued to rise.
"We had wanted a house, but we lowered the price of the property we were looking for.
"We were lucky, as we got a villa that has a bit of a yard."
In a statement on Tuesday, RBA governor Phillip Lowe said interest rates have been increased by four percentage points since May last year.
He said the higher interest rates are working to establish a more sustainable balance between supply and demand in the economy and will continue to do so.
"In light of this and the uncertainty surrounding the economic outlook, the board decided to hold interest rates steady this month," he said.
"This will provide some time to assess the impact of the increase in interest rates to date and the economic outlook.
"Some further tightening of monetary policy may be required to ensure that inflation returns to target in a reasonable timeframe, but that will depend upon how the economy and inflation evolve."
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