Jeremy Mateo, 27, owns a one-bedroom, one bathroom condo in Honolulu, HI. He pays $3,843 a month, which include his mortgage, HOA fees, the maintenance fees, taxes and insurance fees. Jeremy is a real estate broker and YouTuber. Unlocked is a home tour series focused on how much people spend on their housing, what they get for the money and what they had to sacrifice to make it happen.

It’s taken over two years, but these days Jeremy Mateo is finally feeling at home. Mateo, 27, is a real estate broker in Honolulu, Hawaii, and bought his first condo on Oahu island right before the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.

It all started in January 2019, when he was showing a unit in a building that overlooked Diamond Head and Waikiki. “Immediately I saw the view and thought to myself, ‘Wow, I need to live here,’” Mateo tells CNBC Make It. “So I made it my absolute goal to earn the income in order to afford to buy a unit in this building.”

Over the course of a year he saved $60,000 for a down payment and worked toward his goal of buying his “dream home.”

Then he spent another year renovating and furnishing his place. The last of his furniture arrived in spring 2021, finally closing the chapter on his homebuying journey.

Here’s how Mateo bought his one-bedroom condo for $560,000.

A year of saving
When Mateo set his homebuying goal, he was still learning the ropes of real estate and earning $20,000 a year. After researching one-bedroom prices in the area, he committed to selling 10 homes in 2019 in order to earn $100,000 in commissions, the bulk of which he’d put toward his down payment.

His determination paid off. After he set his goal, Mateo sold 17 homes that year, took home $120,000 and put everything into savings while giving himself $500 a month for food, gas and daily expenses. Mateo is grateful his mom let him continue to live at home rent-free during that time.

“She just wanted me to sell a bunch of homes and save for my down payment so I could buy my home. And as soon as I moved out, she was extremely happy,” Mateo says, laughing.

Mateo supplemented his income working as a nightclub deejay and even saved money on his social life by getting free admission and drinks to join his friends while working: “Being a deejay will help you save on cocktails,” he adds.

The hunt, with an insider’s assist
Though Mateo was hitting his savings goals, he recognized that one-bedroom units in his price range were scarce.

He went back to his dream building and looked up the names and addresses of residents on the 25th floor and above, then sent out three rounds of handwritten letters to see if anyone was interested in selling their unit to him.

When that didn’t work, he used his insider access to check the MLS, or multiple listing service database, for expired listings to see if he could reopen any offers. He found an expired listing from 2012 for a unit on the 37th floor going for $560,000. Mateo then called the real estate agent behind the listing to see if the residents were still interested in selling.

As Mateo remembers it, “the next day he calls me back and he says, ‘Hey, Jeremy. Yes, my clients, they actually want to sell now.’ And right there I hung up the phone and I got up and I yelled. I was cheering. I was super excited.”

Mateo used the original $560,000 listing price as a jumping off point, which the sellers accepted. Mateo considers it “a really great deal.”

He was surprised by the stress he felt throughout the process: “As a real estate agent, I thought I was prepared for everything. But when it came to the emotional side, I was still stressing.”

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Living In A $3,800/Month Condo In Honolulu, Hawaii | Unlocked