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First Home Series - Part 4: What's it all going to cost?

A lot of the time, people forget that there are costs on top of the purchase price of the house! Here, we look at what additional costs come into play when purchasing your new home... Firstly, there are costs involved in using some of the professionals above. Mortgage advisers are usually free and you wont need to pay anything to the vendors real estate agents but there are costs involved for the below services/professionals; Solicitor: $500 - $2000Registered Valuation: $800 - $1200Building Insp...

First Home Series - Part 5: What are banks looking for?

While you’re saving for your first home, it's a really good idea to get ‘bank fit’. What exactly does ‘bank fit’ mean? Basically if you can present yourself in the best light possible and tick a few boxes the bank has, you are more likely to be approved. So what exactly are the banks looking for and how can you get ‘bank fit’?  Size of deposit Firstly, the bank will look at the size of your deposit and the value of the home you want to purchase. You can start seriously co...

First Home Series - Part 6: The five steps to buying

Step 1: Pre-approval So you’ve budgeted, saved, put in some extra hours and you’ve got your deposit ready to go! Now it’s time to get pre-approved. Your mortgage adviser will handle everything to do with your pre-approval. They’ll check out your deposit, income, expenses etc and give you a rough idea about what you may be able to spend or whether you can afford to spend what you have in mind. From here, the adviser will go out and get you a loan offer. This could be multiple offers, from...

First Home Series - Part 3: Who's involved in your first home purchase?

When buying a property, there are a bunch of important things that happen in the background but rest assured there are a team of professionals you can assemble who will deal with all this stuff so you can just focus on getting the house!  1) Mortgage adviser We may be biased but we reckon it’s always a good idea to get a great mortgage adviser on your team! So what exactly does a mortgage adviser do? A mortgage adviser typically will look at your overall situation and make their best reco...

First Home Series - Part 2: How to save for your new home

You need a deposit There’s no two ways about it; when you’re looking at buying your first home you will need some kind of deposit! At the very minimum you will need 10% - 20% of the purchase price as a deposit. For many people the prospect of having to save a minimum of $60,000 - $150,000 is enough to make them kiss their home ownership dreams goodbye. With a bit of planning and commitment, you can get that deposit together and it doesn’t all have to come from squirreling away!...Here’s ...

First Home Series - Part 1: Why buy a house?

Why would you buy a house? We’ve got quite a few different thoughts about why buying a home in New Zealand is a good idea. We tend to think that owning our own home is a mark of achievement and success. It’s security for you and your family.  You need somewhere to live...The first reason being is that you’re always going to need somewhere to live. Seems obvious but owning a home means you always have a place to live on your own terms, not someone else's.  It’s generally a prett...

You may be losing your banker, but your adviser is still here!

It’s no secret that the face of banking has changed over the last few years. It’s a topic close to our heart, working in a lot of smaller, provincial towns. Banks are downsizing, by reducing branch hours, reducing the amount of branch support staff and even closing branches altogether in some areas.  Times are changing and most things can be done via internet banking, which is awesome but at times, we understand you still need someone to talk to. You might be losing your bankers, but yo...

Do I have to break my fixed rate if I buy another property?

We get asked quite often “If I sell my property, can I transfer existing lending and its interest rate to a new property?” While this used to be common, it is much less obtainable these days. Therefore, many are left facing break fees on existing lending when they sell their property to buy a new one.  When you sell one property and buy another you will likely have to break the fixed term on your lending and that leads to break fees. You’d entered into a contract with the lender that ...

Loan Term vs Fixed Term - What's the difference?

Adam explains the difference between a 'loan term' and a 'fixed term' and breaks down the jargon.  Watch the video and check out the examples below to learn more. ...

Top tips on making offers

Arguably one of the most exciting parts of the "purchasing a home" process is making your first offer on a property! I've heard plenty of stories (especially in the last few years in a busy market) of people making multiple offers which fall through (due to a range of factors) and we're always keen to break down some of those barriers and help make this process easy.Our top tips are as follows;Get pre-approved - this is the first step and you can find out a little more about this on our blo...

A Guide to Back My Build

(For information on ANZ's Blueprint to Build scheme, check out this blog)The team at My Mortgage are receiving heaps of questions around the recently announced Back My Build variable rate that ASB and AIA/Sovereign are offering. We have already arranged Back My Build home loans for clients and have some helpful information below to help you understand whether you are eligible and should take advantage of this product.  Back My Build is a new product offered exclusively by ASB and AIA/Sovere...

Why can't I buy a more expensive property if I have a large deposit?

It’s very common for a client to come to us and talk about their deposit. In the past banks were more lenient and may have lent money solely based on the size of the deposit. These days, banks are looking at more of a combination of deposit and serviceability. So what exactly does this mean?  When borrowing money the bank will look at what size deposit you have as well as the makeup of your household income and expenses. Basically, how much money do you have available once you have covere...

Low Equity Margins & Low Equity Premiums - What are they?

You’ve probably heard the terms Low Equity Margin or Low Equity Premium thrown around lately, so what exactly are they? What are Low Equity Margins & Premiums? Low Equity Margins and Premiums (LEM’s and LEP’s) are a fee the bank charges borrowers when they have less than 80% equity in their property i.e. less than a 20% deposit. For example, if you want to purchase a house for 500k, but have less than 100k deposit, then you are borrowing more than 80% of the value of the property. This is...

Refinancing your home loan in 2021

With interest rates once again at historic lows, and a busy 12 months in the property space, we're getting a lot of enquiries from existing and new clients who are considering a refinance of their home loan.Firstly - what's a refinance?Unlike a Re-fix - which is simply choosing a new rate and time period on your existing home loan, a refinance is effectively switching banks - either for a slightly better rate or situation, a bank which suits your needs, or perhaps some cashback offered by the ne...

Buying a house from family at below market value - How to make that work.

With the way house prices are going, a lot of parents, grandparents and "adoptive family" are looking at ways to help people out to get on the property ladder. One of the ays we are seeing this happen is family members selling property they already own, to their families at discounted rates. e.g The property is worth $700K but mum and dad are happy for you to pay them $500K for it. This is great and totally possible, but there are a few things to consider here and it is good to put some tho...

Meeting finance when there are still outstanding conditions

Meeting your finance clause is one of the most exciting parts of the process in buying your next home. Not only do you have the money ready to go, but you're more often than not also meeting your other conditions which means you're ready to confirm that you're on your way to being a home owner! I'd like to explain a little bit about that final part of the finance process and it all fits together. In some cases there will be remaining conditions to meet, but most of the time these are providing e...

Using Second Tier Lenders to get to where you want to go

At My Mortgage the large majority of the clients we work with we are looking at the main banks as the best option for them. At the main banks you can get the best interest rates usually and utilise things like their great online banking and other products like credit cards etc. However, not everyone or every situation fits with the main banks and when that is the case, second tier lenders can be a great options. These lenders are reputable trusts, credit unions and other lenders that have b...

Why would I have to lower my credit card limit or pay off interest free lending?

When we do new applications, we get asked all the time “why does the bank care about my credit card limit if I don’t have a balance on it?” or “why do they care about short-term interest free lending?”...Greg's got the answers in the video below, or read on for more info. ...

Buying with others - Being Jointly & Severally liable for the lending

With the cost of houses increasing as they are currently, it can feel a little overwhelming for people to buy on their own. Teaming up with someone else is a great option to increase deposit and income without doubling your expenses.  Buying with a friend or family member when you are both living in the property is fairly simple and is basically the same as being in a defacto relationship with that person and so there aren't a lot of differences from normal "couples" lending. The banks usua...

Financial Life Cycle

This graph talks about your financial position over time. Most of us start out with a high mortgage, and a mortgage that equates to a high percentage of the value of the property. Over time, the value of your property will increase (though we may see up and down fluctuations at times, it generally always shifts up), and as pay your home loan it will decrease. It takes a while for those lines to cross over, but they will crossover at some point! The first years will be harder than the followin...

Valuations - What's The Deal?

There are so many different types of valuations, but the one we deal with the most in our line of work are Registered Valuations, or quite commonly referred to as an RV.  What is an RV?  This is where a Registered Valuer will go out to the property, and take note of lots of specifics – things like the condition of the property, the age, the size, the features etc. Then they will research properties that have been recently sold in the area, as well as properties that are comparable in...

Lazy Loans - What are they & how can My Mortgage help?

A lazy loan is a loan that is not performing as best as it could be for you. Often, we find that when people are changing loan structures or loans are expiring, or they are buying and selling new properties, people end up with loans that are no longer tied in with where they are going and what their financial goals are. For example, if you have a loan sitting there that is floating, you are possibly paying double what you could be if you fixed that amount – higher interest rates means that yo...

Long Term Fixing - Is Now the Time?

For the last few years, we have been advising people to fix their home loans for shorter loan terms to take advantage of the downward trending interest rates, but it looks like we might be nearly at the bottom of the low-rates curve. There is no way to know what the curve will look like until we have some distance from it, but in our opinion (and plenty of other experts) all signs point to rates making an upward shift in the coming months. What’s long-term? We think that a 2 year fixed term is...

The Risk of Fixing Your Home Loan

We have seen over the last year or so that rates have trended down and rates have looked attractive on both the shorter terms and longer terms, so we wanted to have a quick chat to help you understand what the pros and cons are of both. ...

Changes to the First Home Loan & First Home Grant

Yesterday the government made an announcement on changes to help keep buying your first home within reach. One of the key changes made is to the criteria of the First Home Grant and First Home Loan schemes. The First home grant scheme gives first home buyers a one off payment from the government of up to $5,000 for existing properties or up to $10,000 for a new property. The amount you receive varies based on the length of time you have been contributing to KiwiSaver and each buyer can be eligib...