ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

Just over 24 months ago, Sarah Rutland and her defacto Lachie Willmott posed for a photo together next to the ‘sold’ sign hanging on a chainlink fence outside a large construction site.

They’d just purchased their first property.

The image garnered hundreds of likes on both Instagram and Facebook and both the 25-year-olds were awash with a sense of pride and superiority over their peers as they’d finally accomplished the impossible.

“Whoops,” the captioned.

“Accidently tripped over and bought a flat! All those nights staying in and living with the parentals have finally paid off!”

That image has now been removed from their social media accounts.

The French Quarter three-bedroom apartment they purchased off-the-plan for $945 000 less stamp duty is now worth much, much less.

Lachie spoke to The Advocate this afternoon at an Old City District artisan grocer where he took time out of his busy afternoon of feeling like a failure in the eyes of his father to tell our reporter about his seemingly foolish financial decisions.

“We had it valued the other day,” he said, taking a sip from his porcelain keep cup.

“It’s barely worth $800 000. I phoned my Dad to get him to explain the situation to me after the bank laughed at in my ear when I asked if we could lower my mortgage because the apartment had decreased in value,”

“Dad said I was stuck with the original amount, which is unfair, I think. Dad said he wasn’t going to bail me out and that I was stuck with it. Why did he give me the deposit in the first place?”

“The old fuck still wants me to pay it back to him? Does he want to financially ruin his only son?”

When asked why he and Sarah removed the image they posted the day they put themselves in the hole for hundreds of thousands of dollars, Lachie simply said, ‘we look stupid now’.

“Looking at the bottom line, that homeless guy sleeping on the bench over there is in a better situation than me financially. He didn’t even go to private school, I bet he went to a mixed-sex university college,” he said.

“All I was trying to do was appear better than everyone else but I’ve cooked it,”

“And it’s all my Dad’s fault. Sarah is also to blame because she pressured me into this whole thing because she wanted to appear to have her shit together to her friends. I also think the coronavirus is partially to blame.”

“Now that I’ve assigned blame, can things just go back to normal.”

More to come.

