[David_M]

Hi i wass told last night that immigrants cannot purchase a home for the first year in the country and even then can only purchase new builds. Is this true?

Also does anyone have any good websites i can read up on legislation regarding renting/buying in NZ aswell as a good website for looking for rental accommodation while i'm still investigating the migration process please?

[Jo Jo]

No, that's certainly not true! I bought a house before I even had residency.

I'm afraid I can't help with the second question, but I'm sure someone else will be along to help shortly.

[Familyofmonkeys]

For rentals try:

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-me-property/index.htm

http://www.allrealestate.co.nz/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=bhp&t=ren&cu=

http://www.realestate.co.nz/rental

http://homes.search4.co.nz/rent/residential/?SearchID=45212725&TrackSearch=Search

http://www.nz.open2view.com/search

And also all the real estate agents will have rentals on their own website too. Hope this helps.

[David_M]

Thank you for the prompt response.

I was a little worried about that to be honest...

Also nice to know you managed to find and purchase a home before you arrived. Makes my chances of organising at least temporary rental accommodation before entering the country seem far more feasible.

Just need to find a decent resource to look at such information now. :)

[Familyofmonkeys]

For some basic legislation and guidelines for rentals and general house ing problems:

http://www.dbh.govt.nz/tenancy-index

[Familyofmonkeys]

Thank you for the prompt response.

I was a little worried about that to be honest...

Also nice to know you managed to find and purchase a home before you arrived. Makes my chances of organising at least temporary rental accommodation before entering the country seem far more feasible.

Just need to find a decent resource to look at such information now. :)

Also, although most rentals do seem to be for minimum of 6 month contract, you can negotiate a shorter term rental.....esate agents will tell you otherwise, but it is actually up to the property owner. You could always try and negotiate for 3 months so you are not tied in. After the 3 months is up, it justs goes onto a 3 weeks notice rolling contract if you don't want to move out.

[David_M]

Thanks a lot :)

I will look into these as soon as i get home from work.

[shakyle2906]

No, that's certainly not true! I bought a house before I even had residency.

I'm afraid I can't help with the second question, but I'm sure someone else will be along to help shortly.



Hi
Like Jo Jo, we also bought our current house whilst our residency was going through and had no problems at all. Thing that annoyed us was residency paperwork said 'allow 4-6 mths for completion, paperwork sigend for house (at higher rate of something like 10.5% for 6mths) then 2 wks later, residency came through a lot quicker, something like under 2wks! We had to stay in that mortgage agreement for 6mths, but have since been able to transfer to Westpac who have given us a good deal as i work at the local Hospital, and they paid our transfer and other fees charged by National Bank for leaving them early, which werent that too expensive either.

So, to cut a long story short, yes it definetly can be done!

Sharon

[IanW99]

Thank you for the prompt response.

I was a little worried about that to be honest...

Also nice to know you managed to find and purchase a home before you arrived. Makes my chances of organising at least temporary rental accommodation before entering the country seem far more feasible.

Just need to find a decent resource to look at such information now. :)

For some information on housing in NZ check out Housing (http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/settlementpack/Housing/) on the immigration website.

I have seen some mention that if you are not resident that you are unable to buy a property with more than a certain number of acres, I've been entirely unable to find a reference to this though, but if you are thinking of buying a property with a lot of land and not got a PR then I would ask first.

If you don't have a PR then you can only normally get a mortgage for 80% of the property value.

I would advise against organising a rental before arriving, unless you can at least get someone you know to check it out first, or you can get out of the contract quickly.

Ian

[missy+mrmagoo]

For some information on housing in NZ check out Housing (http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/settlementpack/Housing/) on the immigration website.

I have seen some mention that if you are not resident that you are unable to buy a property with more than a certain number of acres, I've been entirely unable to find a reference to this though, but if you are thinking of buying a property with a lot of land and not got a PR then I would ask first.

If you don't have a PR then you can only normally get a mortgage for 80% of the property value.

I would advise against organising a rental before arriving, unless you can at least get someone you know to check it out first, or you can get out of the contract quickly.

Ian

I've read somewhere that it can be difficult to buy more than 6 hectares if you are not a citizen otherwise it's fine. (it was on one of the real estate sites I think)
We've just bought a house and we don't have residence yet so that isn't a problem.

[mossum]

Check out the overseas investors act ..

http://www.bellgully.com/resources/pdfs/overseas_investment_guide_2006_02_02.pdf

basically to stop shanaia twain or any other millionaire buying up NZ.

vic