[joeandsacha]

What are the income multiples like for mortgage borrowing in NZ? In the UK, I think it varies between 3-4 just now for single; not sure about joint.

And what proof of income do you need? Obviously, they're not going to lend to you until you've got a job, but do you need 3 months payslips from a NZ employer first?

And can you negotiate on this like you can with rates and charges?

Just trying to work out what we can realistically afford when we move over.

Cheers.

[tea drinker]

There is a bit of information about mortgages on the homepage.
Hope that it helps

[joeandsacha]

That's useful. I should have looked there first!

Cheers.

[macuser]

http://www.homebuyerscentre.nationalbank.co.nz/calculators/calculator.aspx?PostingID=40

Try this too.

Helen

[Smiler]

Here's a useful site for working out repayments, interest rates etc; http://interest.co.nz/mortgages.asp

Apparently you can 'haggle' with the rates and fees, some companies offer to pay the fees as part of the deal.

We don't have a mortage yet so haven't tried to haggle with the rate, has anybody and what kind of rate/reception did you get?

[The Hodges]

Also, try http://www.sorted.co.nz and Avalon's take on mortgages in her money thread (http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9357)

As for the deals - just ask. There is always a deal somewhere and since being here, I've asked for discounts & deals (which I wouldn't have dreamt of asking for in the UK) and usually got something. Avalon even managed to get a discount on her mortgage!

Also, one of the guys in the office has his mortgage with his bank and he gets all of his bank charges refunded - but I'm not sure if this is the norm.

[Croft]

We've had mortgage guranatees from both ASB and Westpac based on our UK salaries.

[Croft]

For a view of interest rates I prefer http://www.goodreturns.co.nz/section/200.html

[b&k]

There's a function in Excel which you can use to calculate the payments on a repayment mortgage called PMT(!). The formula in Excel should look like this:

=pmt(monthly rate, number of monthly payments, -mortgage amount) note that mortgage amount must be negative as you owe the money.

The monthly mortgage rate is the only tricky bit. To calculate it, you need the following formula:

monthly rate = (1+annual rate)^(1/12)-1

For example if you pay 9.25% then you monthly rate = (1+9.25%)^(1/12) = 0.74%

So for a $200,000 at 9.25% over 25 years (=300 months) the formula would be:

=pmt(0.74%, 300, -200000) = $1662

I have posted a zipped spreadsheet below as an example.