Has time lapsed since you last decided to fix the interest rate on your home loan, or is your mortgage up for renewal? Are you wondering about switching banks to get a better deal? There’s no need to stress… With the right advice, we can make refixing or refinancing your mortgage a safe and easy process. There’s a lot of change going on in the market, home buyers and owners looking to refinance have some tough questions to consider: Do I fix? Do I float? Do I wait a bit more? Do I risk it and just take a punt? Knowing whether to fix or float is not a perfect science. Currently, there’s no bet ..read more

It’s been a year of lockups, lockdowns, and lockouts. With travel off the cards, many of us are turning to our homes for sustenance and inspiration. Inspiring home life is what NZ House & Garden magazine is about. Kiwis are their voice: our houses, gardens and lives are their inspiration. So, you can imagine how super excited we were to have our home in The Bay of Islands featured in the February edition of NZ House & Garden. Just as we were coming out of lockdown last year our home was photographed by the fabulous Jane Ussher. Jane is one of New Zealand’s foremost portrait photograph ..read more

On 15 March 2021 amendments to the government’s Financial Market Conduct Act 2013 (FMC) came into effect. Many mortgage experts, banks, insurers, building societies, credit unions and other providers of financial and risk insurance advice have all experienced big changes. what is the change? Throughout the advice process, all assessments and recommendations need to comply with the duties specified in the FMC Act and the Code. When giving financial advice to retail clients, we all must: Take reasonable steps to ensure our clients understand the nature and scope of the advice being provided ..read more

The world may be scrambling for toilet paper but for many, the essentials in short-supply are maintaining cash flow and sustaining lifestyle. Anxiety, fear, and stress levels have left no one untouched. Careers, businesses, and certainty have been destroyed overnight. But together we will get through this. Nobody will lose their homes if we all heed caution and take advantage of financial assistance and smart money-saving strategies. Managing stress is critical to maintaining a healthy immune system. However, we know this is easily said and hard to practice when you feel submerged in financia ..read more

  Many clients have been inspired by our move up to the Far North. We achieved that through careful leverage but also by careful risk-taking. Leverage is about leveraging off other people’s success, leveraging off other people’s advice; leveraging off equity you have in your property; leveraging off opportunities. So many of you have asked for more details about the new home we moved to in April 2015 – just north of Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands—and how we made such a successful move.  It’s such an amazing story of manifestation that we also wanted to share some photos, not to boas ..read more

Kiwi’s don’t just love their homes, we also love the opportunity to improve, extend, redecorate or redesign our castles. In fact, the freedom to do up your home or investment property in the way you choose is one of the awesome benefits of property ownership. Doing a house up to fit your grand design is exciting—but potentially stressful. With finances to raise, decisions to make, contracts to sign, contractors and subbies to watch…things seldom go to plan. Cost escalations, drama, conflict, and mayhem are just some of the stressors which can turn things less than sweet. But there are a few si ..read more

It was such a pleasure to help this lovely young family purchase their first home. We were pretty stoked to receive the lovely story below and to hear how what we were able to do for them changed their lives. Read, in their own words, how important it is to make the right steps, talk to the right professionals, and maintain your vision and dream that one day you too will have a place of your own to call home. “We are a family of three living in Hawera, South Taranaki. Myself (Piers) my fiancé Loren and our son Odin. We also have a wee French bulldog crossed with a toy poodle ca ..read more

ls Wellington the new Auckland? There has been plenty of press of late suggesting that the Wellington property market has become like Auckland’s. But while prices are on the move Wellington has a long way to go before it becomes as over-heated as its counterpart up north. Growing numbers of Aucklanders now simply can’t afford to buy or rent a house, and they are looking south, as well as east. Investors are looking for better buys too. We’ve experienced the shift first hand, helping record numbers of clients, both those living inside and outside Wellington, snap up property as they contin ..read more

When you finally find your dream home it’s easy to fall in love with the house and forget to take prudent steps to check that everything is in good order. On the surface the property may look perfect: Perfect shiny new paint lacquered to a gleam; prefect interior with the latest high-spec kitchen and wondrous plumbing. Perhaps even a wonderful perfectly manicured garden. everything that glistens is not always gold Straight away you can see yourself in the house living your dream life and enjoying loads of barbecues with friends in the height of summer. But don’t be fooled. Everything that gli ..read more