welcome home loans

hey guys,
we have just been gifted a amount of $$ that we have relised will be enough for us to get a house through welcome home loans, however we have never been down that sort of road before!!! anyone know where 2 start .. what do we do?? and has anyone got theirs through them .. is there anything we should know, we are so excited as least we know we are spending the $$ wisely and have somewhere secure, warm etc for bubs!

Carin...don't take this the wrong way, but your DP needs to get his facts correct. The reason I say that is because WE have a Welcome Home Loan (and have had for over 2 years now), and I know of over 7 people in Taranaki alone who have them also. I think there may be a couple of other people here on OB who have one as well. Not only that, savings has nothing to do with it - we had none at all, and we went for 100% lending. We ALSO both had glitches on our credit history and other debts. Hello $205k mortgage and home ownership. They also accept gifted deposits quite happily - in fact they explicitly state it on their website.

We went through a mortgage broker for our loan, and he approached various lenders. We ended up with SBS, and they are fantastic. Even when we refinance off the Welcome Home Loan, we are likely to stay with SBS. There were a few conditions to the loan - you need a registered valuation (approx $500), you pay a low equity fee, which goes to Housing NZ as they underwrite the borrowing (basically they guarantee it) - this is approx 1% of the loan, and is added on to your mortgage. They prefer you to have no other debt, or low debt, but mostly they look at your ability to service. Sure, if you have a savings history it will count in your favour! But it's not essential. We had unpaid accounts with Baycorp (long story - we didn't even know they were there until SBS did a credit check) and we had to pay them in full before we could get our final acceptance. They also require a copy of the sales and purchase agreement, your last 3 months bank statements and confirmation of your income. Back when we got our mortgage, it was a little less strict than what it is now in relation to the payment to income ratio, but YOU need to be realistic about what you can afford.

Remember the other charges you need to pay - insurance (you HAVE to have house insurance as a term of the mortgage), lawyers fees (approx $1000), rates, the valuation fee, money for a LIM report (some people would say don't bother with one, but unless you know what you are looking for in Council reports, I would suggest it's better to get one) which is usually $100-200, and any moving costs - these are all payable by you and are unable to be added to the loan. If you think home ownership is definitely the way you want to go, get in touch with a mortgage broker - sometimes they also have other options besides a WHL that would be suitable

Oh, and with the WHL they do catch up phone calls every 6 months just to make sure everything is going ok etc. Pain in the bum, but they last about 5 minutes and that's it for another 6 months!! Like I said, we've had ours for just over 2 years, and without it, we wouldn't have our own home If you want any specific info, feel free to ask, or PM me I also have a lot of knowledge regarding the legal side of things, as it is my background (property law and insurance) so any questions about that are quite welcome too!!

Last but not least.....sorry for the novel and good luck!!!!



Edited by minik8e

thank you so much. has answered a few questions. we can service a home loan no problems we just havn't had the saving thing going on .. we have very small debt .. and it is possible for us to pay this off .. very lucky to have parents that are wanting to help us out and get ahead which i am so thankful for!! will let you know how i get on.
i know of a few people that have got loan via WHL but am yet to ask how we go about it.
thanks

I wish we could do it. We meet the criteria but because DH doesn't earn enough for the repayments we only qualify for about $180,000 or something which won't get you anything in Auckland.

Great scheme though.

Good luck you will be totally fine!

My brother is a mortgage broker and he puts A LOT of people on the WHL scheme - its a great scheme.

LOL Kate - we all know my DP is full of it though right

Has anyone bought a house through this that has already owned a home ever??

I know a few who have used this scheme too and love it, but I owned a home once so I dont think I can do it through this scheme

RJ - I would double check, as I think they changed the requirements, and now it's as long as you meet the criteria and do not CURRENTLY own a home, you qualify. Might pay to give them a ring though!!! Our mortgage broker did say something like this to us but I never paid much attention, just because we were trying to buy our first home at the time and buying another wasn't even remotely worth considering LOL

Carin - your DH is similar to mine - he knows everything there is to know about things, even if it's not actually quite right

Oh, and it is taking a wee bit longer than 1-2 days to get confirmation at the moment, mainly because of Housing NZ (who have to approve the loan as well as the lender). It's taking around a week or two to get the final confirmation at the moment.

freckle - like I said above, DH and I did also. Bear in mind that they only stay on your credit history for 7 years - I'm not sure how long ago yours were, but it's something to remember!!

I think the requirements are that you have to be in the position of a new home buyer, so very little deposit, haven't been able to have financial success from owning your own home etc. This is the recent change some were talking about.