I've recently bought a house in kihikihi. Don't believe everything anyone tells you. My lawyer almost cost me the house a couple of times.
The mortgage broker has been amazing (Lime group if anyone is looking I'd strongly recommend them).
It's not actually expensive to buy a house. I've had kiwisaver since the beginning. I've only contributed $6000. I bought (well loaned the money to buy) a brand new Ute at the start of the year. Then saved about $13,000 to pay a chunk of the loan back but decided to buy a house instead. Literally 4 months savings to buy a house. Our mortgage is $8 more than our rent was. Our insurance has gone up. But not stupidly so.
The valuation could fuck you over too. The valuation came back $8000 less than purchase price, so our 12% deposit dropped below 10% and we had to save the entirety of our next pays to get back over 10%. The valuation was arranged by the bank, they didn't factor into the valuation the work that hadn't been done which was in the purchase agreement (New fence, extending the section 4m back, new heat pump, repairs picked up in the building report). The valuation would be about $30,000 more now compared to June when it was done.
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