Mortgage size

[Suffia]

Hiya
Not sure if I'm posting this in the right place so mods please move it if it doesn't belong here

We are planning on moving over to NZ with or without PR sometime in the 1st 6months of 2006 (OH is a fab/welder so should have no probs finding work & is coming out for interviews in Jan/Feb 06.)

So to my question, what is an average sized mortgage in NZ ??
Is a $200,000 mortgage big/average/small ??

We'll have at least NZ$110,000 to put towards a house & are thinking of the North island to settle.

Thanks
Suf'n'Kev

[ShakerMike]

Not sure I can specifically answer your questions, but someone told me that a mortgage payment of up to 30% of net take home pay will allow you a reasonable lifestyle around Auckland (we're looking North Shore).

From the research I've done I think house prices vary quite a bit around North Island, and also vary around Auckland, where property prices seem expensive (compared to salary but probably aren't too bad when you compare them to similar properties in the UK)

[foolsgold99]

During the election, helen clark spoke about interests rates, she always spoke about someone with $150k mortgage, so I guess that must be pretty average. Ours is $210k.

$310k, will buy you a pretty nice house in most parts on the north island. Auckland is different though, I wouldn't want to shop for an average family house there with much less than $400K

If you don't have to live in the city for work, then head out to east coast, to either bay of plenty or hawkes bay, a bit nicer weather too from what I understand

[Soon2baKiwi]

Hi - we were told the average mortgage is $250k and ours is a bit more than that. $400k will get you a nice house around West North Shore (Glenfield, Birkenhead etc). My brother in law is an accountant and when we were freaking out about taking out that size mortgage his take on it was that in 10 years time that won't be a big mortgage at all, taking pay increases and cost of living into account. As I say, HIS take on it.

[Singel]

The rule of thumb, it is advisable to take up mortgage in proportion to the net income, generally 30% to max of 40% of your take home pay, for lifestyle sake and not trap with financial woes (not forgetting, there are a lot of household expenses after the monthly mortgage payment).

[Moorf]

This might make you think.... a mortgage of $200k is approx $1400 a month. A salary of $55k is approx $3k take home a month. So about half your salary will go on the mortgage. What you can afford will be dictated by your salary. So $200k could be high or it might be manageable, depending on your income.

[Avalon]

I always think its fun to play with Mortage Calculators (but then im a bit wierd in the head like that).

If you have some idea of what your take home pay will be, go have a look at Westpac's calculators - especially the "fine tune your loan" one which tells you the toatal interest cost of your mortgage over the life of it, and also you can play about with the numbers to see the effect extra payments have on your costs.

http://www.westpac.co.nz/olcontent/o...an+calculators

Our mortage is 265K.

[jan]

I went to see the home loan guy last week.

Houses in Orewa (north shore) average between $400 - $500. Four bedroom on the flat and about 10 - 15 yrs old.

We wanted a mortgage of $200,000. Clubbed together with our $200, ( if we sell our Uk property) gave us $400,000. Our monthly payments with a floating interest mortgage was $1700. a month!!! For 30 more years!!!

[Avalon]

Copied from another thread i posted on:

As an example:

We sold a UK house for 215K which had a 145K mortgage on it. My parents sold a 200K house with no mortgage on it.

Together we bought a $600k house here (only £240K!!!!) My parents put in about £80k ($200k), we put in about £55k ($130K) and we have a mortgage of $265K (£106K).

The interest on our UK Mortgage (145K) was costing about £630 a month ($1575).

The interest on out NZ mortgage (106K) is costing: £760 a month ($1900)

[Avalon]

Jan - reminds me - My figures are based on a 20year mortgage (both in the UK and NZ - so the comparison is still applicable)