[Lupin]

Getting a bit ahead of myself here but I was wondering if anyone could fill me in on what to expect when buying a house in NZ. Here in the UK it seems to take 6-10 weeks for house sales to go through and is a drawn out wretched process. Should I brace myself for the same in NZ? Thanks in advance :)

[jubjub]

Its very fast over here, we bought and moved in within 3 weeks.... Basically if the people are ready to move out, then you can move in as quickly as you can get the paperwork/mortgage sorted.

[sizzlingbadger]

We bought and moved in within a week and a half here in NZ :D The property was empty and we had a mortgage already agreed in principle.

Unlike the UK where it took us 4 months to complete with constant chasing of our solicitors and the buyers solicitors :wah

[Lupin]

Wow!! :)

[katandbob]

look forward to sorting ours in the future, hope we have an easy time too :nice1
Kat

[Tia Maria]

Ours also only took a few weeks, but the house had been on the market for a while, so they really wanted to move.

There were quite a few issues, with the LIM report, so things could have dragged on, but everyone involved, put in a real effort to push it through. The estate agent, chased up the council, and the solicitor even paid for a report to be done, rather than have us, and the vendor disagree about whose responsibility it was.

Do always make offers subject to conditions, (in our case LIM, Finance and Builders report), even though it can slow things down. But our experience is everyone is much more determined to get any issues sorted out. If we'd been purchasing the same property in the UK, I'm sure it would have dragged out and taken months rather than weeks!

Cheers

Tia

[Moorf]

Both our house purchases in NZ took under 6 weeks. The second purchase we did "back to front" in that we put in an offer on the house before even putting ours on the market - it seems most Kiwi's sell, or get an offer on, their existing property first. Only difference was we put in "house sale" as a condition of our purchase.

Also helps to go and get finance approved from the bank first in terms of what they will lend you - National Bank gave us a certificate with the max amount they would lend on it which allowed us to know how much we could bid/spend on a property.

[Lupin]

Thakns for the advice...have added both to my notebook ;-)

[katandbob]

Thakns for the advice...have added both to my notebook ;-)

Note book???...........I need a case just for my file of info that I have! :eek: and I am only allowed 20kg....(at this rate my boys will be bringing out most of my stuff in their 40kg limit that they got in september)

But yay...cant wait to apply for a mortgage!

Kat