First Home Buyers Club Blog

Launched in 2017, KiwiBuild set out with an ambitious goal of delivering 100,000 affordable homes for first home buyers. Since its inception, the program has encountered challenges and its critics along the way. However, there have been noteworthy positive changes made to the KiwiBuild initiative, which this article aims to cover comprehensively. This article will provide you with all the essential information you need to know about KiwiBuild and its current status. 

Buying your first home can be an exciting, yet daunting, prospect. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is the deposit required to secure a mortgage. For many Kiwis, being able to make a one-off withdrawal from their KiwiSaver for a home deposit enables them to reach their home-buying dreams. 

Whether you’re a first home buyer or already a property owner, we’ve all been nervously watching interest rates continue to rise through 2023. And now with last week’s OCR rise of another 50 basis points … if only we had a crystal ball to know the impact this is going to have on home loan interest rates going forward, and whether it’s a good time for first-home buyers to dive into the property market.

This article was written April 2023.

Buying a home is a major milestone in anyone's life and the process of finding the right one can be overwhelming. Once you've arranged your pre-approval, know your budget, and have your home deposit ready, now the really exciting part begins ... it’s time to start house hunting!

Here are 5 tips to help make your home search a success.

You‘ve done the hard yards, you’ve scrimped and saved, and you cautiously think you’re ready to move to the next stage of buying your first home! High Fives by the way, you have just achieved the most difficult milestone of the journey, and you’ve stayed the distance. We know how hard you’ve worked and now the fun part begins! But where to from here?  

The team at Schnauer & Co's have put together a resource toolkit to highlight some of the common misconceptions that some first home buyers have and provide you with tips on how to avoid some easy mistakes when buying your first home. Our expert tips will be presented over six easy to read articles, and they are all designed to help you achieve your goal of homeownership in NZ. 

The team at Schnauer & Co's have put together a resource toolkit to highlight some of the common misconceptions that some first home buyers have and provide you with tips on how to avoid some easy mistakes when buying your first home. Our expert tips will be presented over six easy to read articles, and they are all designed to help you achieve your goal of homeownership in NZ. 

The team at Schnauer & Co's have put together a resource toolkit to highlight some of the common misconceptions that some first home buyers have and provide you with tips on how to avoid some easy mistakes when buying your first home. Our expert tips will be presented over six easy to read articles, and they are all designed to help you achieve your goal of homeownership in NZ. 

In the first 2 parts of the series, we discussed the solicitor approval condition and the process to follow when you are not able to satisfy conditions in the agreement for sale and purchase.

In this Part 3, we will highlight the differences between a loan from parents vs a gift from parents (AKA the bank of Mum and Dad).

As always we recommend getting good independent legal advice.

Don't forget to take advantage of Schnauer & Co's First Home Buyer Member Offer for a free 60 minute consultation.

What is good bank account conduct?

One of our Tips For Getting A Yes To Pre-Approval is to show consistently good bank account conduct.  Keeping your bank account in good order is often not considered by first home buyers when preparing to get a pre-approval.