[Tinaelsdon]

Yikes.

I just want to confirm this with other people here who might be in the same boat. We moved here in a rush on a 3 year work visa and have applied for residence when we got here, ( last week actually it was submitted). Now we have a 6 to 7 month wait whilst they clear through a back log.

I've been told that the banks only offer mortgages to residents and I wouldn't be able to get one. So I just walked down the my BNZ branch on Willis in Wellington to confirm this, and the nice chap on the desk told me yes, this was true, whilst still keeping the smile on his face whilst I deflated.

Iif this is the case then were stuck in the rental till at least October. Not happy :-(

Anyhow, the question. Is this 100% absolute fact, has anyone else here managed to get a mortgage whilst not having their residency. and another one, is it not possible to gain a mortgage in the UK with the lower interest rates and buy a property here, isn't that what happens if for example someone buys a house in Spain whilst in the UK, granted your living in the UK and getting a mortgage there, but hell, I'm still a UK citizen. ( hopefully not for much longer though, I'm a Kiwi Wannabe.)

[suebeenz]

Yikes.

Anyhow, the question. Is this 100% absolute fact, has anyone else here managed to get a mortgage whilst not having their residency. and another one, is it not possible to gain a mortgage in the UK with the lower interest rates and buy a property here, isn't that what happens if for example someone buys a house in Spain whilst in the UK, granted your living in the UK and getting a mortgage there, but hell, I'm still a UK citizen. ( hopefully not for much longer though, I'm a Kiwi Wannabe.)

There are quite a few threads on this board. If you search around you should be able to find them pretty quickly.

Quick summary though:
1) No you don't need PR to get a mortgage. You do need to be able to prove that you are making money though.
2) You can get an overseas loan for your Kiwi home if
a) you don't actually need the loan :-)
b) you can offer up a property/house that you own in that country as collateral

Please someone correct me if I got that wrong.

[Jo Jo]

I've got an NZ mortgage and I don't have residency. In fact, I don't even live in NZ yet. So, no, you don't have to have PR to get a mortgage in NZ.

[veronica]

Def time to go and talk to another bank, we had two mortgages before we got residency. both of these were with the westpac but we also looked into the SBS (southlands building soc) and they were helpful. only reason we didn't go with them was we couldn't get a valuer in for them in the time frame we had.

[Moorf]

Yep, we were also offered mortgages when we first arrived here - hubby on 1 yr work visa at the time while PR was going through.

[Danny & Julie]

We have a mortgage with westpac but we have PR however the mortgage advisor told us he would still of offered us a mortgage with a work visa, but you need a 20% deposit.
I'd go and talk with other banks.

[Singel]

We were offered a mortgage of 80% of the house value when we were on work visa while waiting for PR. If we want to borrow beyond 80%, we will have to pay a one-off insurance-related charge (I remembered it is quite a hefty amount).

[off2nz]

We too got a mortgage whilst being on a 6 month work visa and, get this, it was with BNZ!

[Kim39]

Just reiterate what others have said. Yes you can get a mortgage without PR. We were invited to take one out 5 mins after talking to the ASB, and that was after only being in the country for 24hrs on a 2 yr work visa.

Kim