[bob_the_engineer]

We are in the process of putting an offer on a house here in NZ.

I was really surprised when the estate agent asked how much the deposit would be.

I asked why she was interested and she told me that the deposit was paid to the estate agent.
She then asked if we could pay them (the estate agent) a deposit of 6% when/if the contract went unconditional.

She told me that this is the norm in NZ, does anyone have any experience of doing this?

Is this the norm in NZ?

Many Thanks Bob

[kiwidebs]

I think going unconditional is very similar to exchanging - where it is standard in the UK to hand 10% deposit to your solicitor. Someone, no doubt, will correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my understanding of it (I've never bought a house in NZ but when I explained 'exchanging' to them they said it was the same as 'going unconditional').

Debs

[Fiona Papworth]

We are in the process of buying a house over here, luckily we have a friend who used to work in real estate, so she has been advising us. We put a 10% deposit down when we went unconditional ( I think it is the same as exchanging contracts in that if either party backs out it will cost them)
Apparently, the deposit can be as little as 1%, it is just to ensure you are serious about buying and not going to get gazumped.
We put down 10% because there was another offer on our house and we were ensuring that our conditions were the best (1st time buyers, living in a rental etc). Hope this makes sense.
What we are finding is that the whole process is a lot more simple here than in the UK, and our bank was brilliant, after 4 weeks we went into ASB and got a mortgage for $240k,in about 20 minutes, no messing. our only hold up is the 2 week break over Christmas, but we get our keys 10 Jan. I can't wait.

Fiona

[jubjub]

We paid a 10% deposit, its paid when you go unconditional on your offer, and is held by the agent until the actual move in date, when it is handed to the sellers solicitor.

Its actually quite profitable for them as they get the interest accumulated on the deposits between unconditional and exchange!

[Moorf]

Having bought twice now :o I can say with confidence that yes, it's quite normal. The estate agent will also take their fee from the deposit so they normally like to see at least that amount in the account - the Brit couple that bought our last house didn't have much in the way of a deposit so the agent agreed that they could just pay the $$amount of her fee (which was about $14k in the end).

[bob_the_engineer]

Thanks so much for your answers, :) really reassuring.
Being new to this, the idea of handing cash to an estate agent when your buying a house was a rather troubling thought.

Cheers Bob

[Avalon]

We were asked to pay a 10% deposit and told the agent that we would only pay 5% and got that written in the contract. When we went unconditional - the bank paid the 5% and then the agent phoned them straight away demanding another 5%!!!! They were told to go read the contract!

I personally hate the fact that the deposit gets paid to the agent. I would much rather the solicitors hold it. Giving a deposit to people who are as ethical as snakes doesnt seem at all like a good idea to me.

Just my opinion, but some of the tricks agents tried to pull while we were trying to buy a house - I really felt uncomfortable paying them directly.