[oneway]

Moving from the US, what are the easy and hard lessons everyone has learned about getting the best mortgage terms in NZ? What can be negotiated and what can't? What provides a stronger position to negotiate?

I'm especially interested in anything that might fall under the heading "I wish I knew that before."

[srivett]

Check out Avalon's Money Thread - it's chocablock full of useful information.

http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9357

[swissmissdesigner]

Oneway: this is a hard one!
I wish you good luck and please share with us your experience..

cheers

anna

[barryp]

Avalon's money thread is the best. The system really is different here.

It's simple, really. There is a relatively small number of lenders, and each one of them needs to issue loans. (Way less complicated than in the US, where the bagholder on your loan has no connection with the person who sold it to you, and or to the initial underwriting.) This puts you in a strong negotiating position without your having to do anything. They need to sell themselves to you to make money. They are disposed to use service as a differentiator, but the only relevant one is total cost to you.

All you need to do is push for the best package, make clear you're shopping around, and be prepared to walk. Every single thing is negotiable; fees shrink with minimal effort, and you can get other products for free (cheques, credit cards, etc.) just by asking. The actual quoted rate can be played against another lender. Odds are that they'll be willing to loan you more money than you should be comfortable borrowing. (In that way it is a bit like the USA!)

[jubjub]

We are now onto our 2nd mortgage, first time round we paid the published rate and did not think to negotiate, and also got no legal fee help.

This time round we are older and wiser! Setting off to get another fixed rate, we ended up using a mortgage broker friend of ours, she got us money off the rate, and $500 towards legal fees (which should cover it all), and its cost us nothing, the bank pays the brokers for getting them the business. Probably a lazy way of doing it, but probably a very good one if you are new here, or short of time to mess around haggling with banks.

[IanW99]

It would also be worth checking with your employers and banks if they have any discount arrangements in place e.g. we got 0.5% off rate for 2 years and legal fees paid etc.

Seems to be the same deal that you could negotiate anyway but maybe you could then get even more?

Ian