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With the average house price in New Zealand being at least 6 times the average income and Auckland housing affordability around 9 times the average income, it may seem nearly impossible to live the dream of owning your own home.  However, over recent years we’ve seen a shift in the types of home loan applications we receive – with an increase in family members or friends purchasing homes together to get onto the property ladder.

In a decade or two we’ll probably look back on 2019 as a holding pattern year.

As the New Year fades away and the hustle and bustle of the holidays subsides, it is a good opportunity to revisit your financial goals and start implementing some simple tips and tricks to help you rebuild your equity.

The word deposit can cause a little confusion when it comes to buying a home, particularly if it’s your first home.  You’ll talk about deposits with the bank and you’ll also be asked for a deposit by the Real Estate agent. 

So, the word deposit comes up twice when buying a home, but are they the same thing?

I always say to my clients,

“Fix for you and not the market.”   

Although a lot of us may not know what we are doing in 5 years’ time, we do have an idea of what we will be doing in the next 1-3 years.

As interest rates are something we don’t have control over, if you structure your lending based on what you think they'll do rather than your personal circumstances---you’re likely to be disappointed.

Sometimes it seems that when you deal directly with the Bank you receive the above answer.  In my experience, a mortgage broker can give you a completely different one.  

The benefits of using a mortgage broker have become very apparent to me over the last few years, especially since earthquakes. 

There are all sorts of ideas and actions you can put in place to help reduce the loan term on your home loan.   The simplest way is to increase your repayments to reduce your mortgage term which ultimately means you save money by paying less interest.  But something generally needs to be sacrificed for this to happen. 

 http://platomail.platodesign.co.nz/t/r-CAD49771EE7C3BEC2540EF23F30FEDED

There are as many different theories on kids and pocket money as there are leaves on a tree.
(Ok perhaps not quite that many but you get the idea)

Some believe you should link chores to pocket money so that kids develop a good work ethic early and learn that ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees’.  The value of money is certainly an important lesson for children to learn, but what about all those things we have to do as adults that we don’t get paid for? How do we teach our children not to expect pocket money for every task they do, at the same time avoiding the slippery slope into the underworld of bribery to get desired behaviours?