NZ Bank accounts and getting a mortgage

[chandlep]

Hi All,
We will be moving to Wellington in the next couple of months and I am looking to open a NZ bank account shortly from the UK, with a view to buying a property soon after our arrival. Any suggestions on whether there is a good bank to use for mortgages that might suggest who I open our standard bank account with? (am assuming using the same might help my case for a mortgage?)

or, any other advice on where to go for a mortgage as a UK 'soon to be' ex pat?

Thanks a lot
Pete

[JandM]

Hello and welcome.

[Duncan74]

You can open any account, swap banks easily, and get mortgages from any bank regardless of where your account is. Get any account opened (I found National easiest to open as they were the only one doing fully online opening with cards waiting on arrival) at the time I applied last year. Once here, then if the ATMs / branches aren't handy for work / life then swap.

Be very very careful buying too soon once you get here. It takes time to work out areas and understand the way the house market works. Long term renting is a lot more common here and so you could easily do that for a year or two to make sure you like the area (and indeed NZ) before investing a lot of money in a purchase.

[Manks]

I opened a bank account with Westpac over email because I left it a bit late to go through their usual process. Still, account was set up before we got here, we just had to go in person the day after landing and got our EFTPOS cards and everything else set up. Easy as.

Got a credit card with Kiwibank when we got here and that was a bit more involved, required proof of residency etc, that can be sent off through NZ Post Office internal post (meaning you don't have to post it). The fact that we had the old 18A conditions attached meant they wouldn't grant us a high credit limit until we had new visas without conditions (which we now have).

Not had the pleasure of trying to get a mortgage but you will need at least 20% deposit to get the lower rates.

[Georgebulldog]

We set up bank & mortgage with Westpac & got cards the same day, they've been great, a lot better than the UK.
If you can wait a bit before buying it would be wise, we bought & moved in after a month of being here & have been very lucky with what we got, now I know what horrors we could have been left with, I put ours down to 'It was meant to happen' but it frightens me when I think how little we knew, for us it worked but for so many it doesn't so I wouldn't suggest rushing too much

[sophiedb]

We bought 3 months after arriving and moved in one glorious week before the Chch Feb quake Thankfully the house is fine.. but then we had post-Sept quake structural reports etc done, and tbh have been incredibly lucky. We were also guided by hubby's rellies as far as what to look for in areas, building materials etc and also we knew we wanted to be near them - not sure that we would have bought so quickly if it hadn't been for that input and location bias.

Our mortgage was arranged via a broker, thinking that with a minute credit history in NZ and only holding jobs for a short whlie this would be best. We had a 50% deposit and ended up with an ASB mortgage - hubby has had an acount with them for donkey's years anyway, which may or may not have helped (he'd been out of NZ since 1997).

[girlwithanewf]

Hello and welcome,
we opened a bank account with BNZ prior to our arrival and also arranged our mortgage with them. We bought a house and moved in about 4 weeks after arriving here.

good luck with everything.

[louiser]

Hi Pete,
We also set up WestPac & KiwiBank accounts from the UK & activated them, collected cards etc as soon as we arrived in NZ without any problems. We bought soon after & got our mortgage arranged via a mortgage adviser... who set us up with a WestPac mortgage. The adviser was really great at guiding us through the buying process, putting us on to reputable lawyers & the like, so well worth whatever cut he got from WP, and the mortgage deal was pretty good for us. Definitely helps to be able to prove UK assets, income, recent UK bank statements etc.

[JandM]

Hello and welcome.