Dont know what to do :(

I think in many ways you are very lucky you live in gore and it may help you achieve a dream faster than say in auckland!!!

Banks have cracked down BIG time....no idea about welcome home loan but can let you know what I have seen clients do -

get parttime job or fulltime job once bubs is say 6 months old and work and SAVE!!!! show this to the bank say 6-12 months later - DO NOT touch the deposit.

Then get loan and buy house and cut down on your hours etc - so long as the mortgage is able to be met from one wage you will be ok. the 2 year sacrifice to be in your own home will be worth it

another way is to get your parents to guarantee a loan - you will put their home and assets at risk tho so make sure you do crack down and meet all your bills or you will make them lose what they worked for. In a few years (or you set a time frame) you either save enough to repay them OR you borrow to repay them by topping up your mortgage - and then you can truly say the house is ALL yours (and the banks! LOL) If your parents have a family trust the trust could guarantee a loan - still puts the trust assets at risk if you dont pay bills!!!

alll the best - i think you have a good attitude to this and hope you succeed!

I dont understand all the talk of extra responsibilities when owning your own home? Down here we have council rates and enviroment rates not land lease or water rates or anything extra that isnt included in the council rates already. When josh pulls off wallpaper or damages a wall or stains the carpet again it doesnt matter because its my house i can fix all that when the money is there or we renovate that area. I guess we are pretty lucky as we have friends in most trades so if something breaks it can be fixed on the cheap and dp will give anything a go first anyway but we included savings in our budget so there is always emergency money on hand

Shadowfeet our place was cheaper than yours i think :) for us to rent on the north side a 3bd place with a double garage (nessesity for DP) it was $200+ our mortgage is only $340 a fortnight add rates and home insurance and its around $200 a week for our own house which gives us an asset in the end.

I signed josh up for kiwisaver as was told he doesnt have to contribute until he is 18 so paper runs wont be affected plus he gets a free $1000 which wont be offered forever. Eventually there will be some form of scheme that will be compulsary so might as well get in while there is free money to be gained and no high interest account is going to have your investment be matched by your employer as well as a goverment contribution.

As Bobbie said you can chose high risk (for younger people who can afford for their accounts to move up and down because its longer until they need it for retirement or low risk generally for those not far off retirement.

and josh wants me to add honk honk! or at least thats what he keeps saying to me

Man I wish we could get a 3 bed house for $340 a fortnight. Our mortgage is $514 a week, yep a week.

I think getting your own house is a great idea, just make sure you seek financial advisement, ask around for a good advisor and I would also advise borrowing less than they say you can borrow.

Kiwibank have a few good home loan calculators which might help you out and most mortgage brokers and banks will give you free advise.

I think in Southland it must be slightly different to everywhere else with the extra costs hehehe

Here, to rent a 3 bed house in a decent area, nothing flash, maybe a single or double darage, you're looking around $350+ a week. To buy, you're looking probably around $280k, which means the mortgage would probably be around $450 a week (based on 30 year term, 7.2% interest rate), plus rates of approx $35 a week, plus insurance (dunno what that is, say $40 a month) $10 a week....that's just under $500 a week to buy a pretty standard home. So that's the extras for you!! We pay pretty close to that each week for a 2 1/2 bdrm house on a little section, but we bought when prices were high and banks were giving money away LOL

emz wrote: I would rather play the sharemarket myself than let some big-wigs use my money to play it. My father and his share group are doing really well and would rather take their advice, and their advisors advice than someone elses (no offence to anyone ).

I think that is very sensible, always take the advice of people you trust.

emz - just think of the $$ when DH leaves. That's what I do

Wow !!, So feel sorry for those having to pay 400 a week on rent!! thats crazy!! Our house in Invers was 165000 3 bedrooms, totally renevated and with insurances (home, contents & life) added in our mortage (with having had no deposit )is still only 270 per week so totally do-able in southland even on one income. But totally agree that there can be extra costs with things that would usually be covererd by the landlord.

Bubie , we went through Roost mortage brokers, think they're based in Dunedin but you can do it all over the phone, and the guy was awesome... just incase you were thinking of looking into it.

SMoody wrote: My advice: Start looking around and see what house prices are in your area as well as areas you would like to live. Then go to the online calculators and see what the payments on that will be. Then go to the ASB one and you put what you are spending on rent now and how big a mortgage you will get on on the amount you already just spending on rent. Now you need a deposit. So what ever the difference in the two amounts are (rent and mortage payment you worked out) and put that in a deposit account. Then make sure all your bills get paid on time, That you dont have any other debts (cars paid off and HP's ect). Then put everything else you can away as well and then start speaking to banks and mortgage brokers ect and check the market out.

Then close the browser window, give up and pour yourself a stiff drink

haha joking - it's good advice actually.

We pay $450 in rent for a small 3 bedroom unit. I would guess it would cost about $450k + to buy given its proximity to Takapuna.

Wow thank you so much guys, really really good advice thank you so much