Some of the things to consider when trading up. Timing – what will be the best approach and what are the pros and cons of each one. Best of course is to sell first and then buy. But do you sell with a late settlement date? Perhaps however it can limit the number of buyers. Buying first can be risky in certain markets, as you don’t have the exact numbers of what you will get out of the old place. Costs – other costs at times overlooked can be, storage or temporary accommodation. Also the new home loan approval, does it have conditions for reducing short term debt? Car loans and credit cards m ..read more

Miriam Bell(senior journalist Stuff Masthead) was kind enough to share her thoughts around what’s happening with house prices across the main cities in NZ. This February compared to the previous year. Auckland had the highest increase in the numbers of houses sold(52.9%)in February. Although right across the country, the volume of houses sold is up(37.9%). Prices are in positive territory but ever so slightly. In Auckland and Wellington there are is still a big gap in terms of prices from the peak. Interestingly Christchurch seems to look a lot more stable when considering the past ten years ..read more

Your baby will get up to all sorts of dangerous things, from putting all sorts of things in their mouth to climbing obstacles . You will want to wrap them up in cotton wool and insurance is kinda like that. Medical insurance will mean later on in life if conditions do develop, you have robust protection. Especially when considering how the industry treats pre existing conditions. Generally medical cover is not available on conditions that you had developed before taking the cover. Critical illness or trauma cover which provides a lump sum under certain medical conditions, is also available fo ..read more

Does the OCR have an impact on the fixed rates? Yes and no, the clip above captures some trends we have seen over the past two years. Often we will see the short term rates move and be heavily influenced by the OCR. Expectations of future OCR movements also have an impact. As well as the wholesale rates which gets influenced by funds from here and abroad navigating global economic expectations. Could the fixed rates make an opposing move to the OCR We can see the long term rate shift down while the OCR moves up at times during the past few years. Also at times we have seen the banks compete o ..read more

The family is getting bigger and you need a bigger home, a better school zone. Or perhaps you just need to be loved more. Either way we can make things really simple, there are a few ways to go about this. Open ended bridging Imagine if you could settle on a new place and have around six months to sell the old home. This can be a great option and could be available at times. The advantage to this is that you move is smoother. Plus you have secured something you know you can enjoy living in before letting go of the last place. The downside is that the temporary large amount of loan is not gonn ..read more

Not always are you fully covered my friend even with medical insurance. What is Pharmac? There is some sore sentiment towards the public healthcare system at times but we must remember its better than a lot of places in the world. Our government has an awesome instrument for procuring medication, pharmac is the umbrella we do our bulk buying through. However there is never an endless supply of money and so only some medication is covered by the government. So medical insurance has my back right? Depends on the type of medical insurance you have, surprisingly some only cover you for pharmac me ..read more

Should you be worried? Well generally, no. By design the DTI(Debt to Income Ratio) at 6-7 times income is more than what you could borrow. At the time of writing this article at least. Also the Reserve Bank of New Zealand is also proposing to ease deposit requirements at the same time. So why do it? Yeah good point, well as interest rates drop, the loan amount you can afford increases. The DTI is designed to try and get rid of big peaks in house prices during times when such behavior feels justified. Like a low interest rate environment. In some sense you could have more room during tough eco ..read more

Two types I have seen A the risk of simplifying things too much I have noticed two distinct types of suburbs. Suburbs where houses are mainly owned by those living in them and other suburbs where investors own most of the homes. Generally the investor areas carry a varied social economic population. And house prices seem more reasonable due to the fact that most investors will pay an amount relative to rents. The more desirable for home owners seem to be able to achieve more emotional buying. Cashflow Cashflow decides how comfortable the investment is for the first ten years. Especially when ..read more

So why are many commentators predicting much nicer interest rates shortly? The wholesale rates have taken a bit of a nose dive in the past couple of months. But the bit missing has been the flow through to us consumers. Swap rate In New Zealand the swap rates are the cost of interest rate certainty between banks. It does give us a strong indication of where the cost of funds currently sit. Early December we saw this creeping down and in that one month there has been a downward movement of approx .5%. When taking into account movements from November till now we have seen an approx 1% decrease ..read more

There are times where a little more comfort is required when dealing with your home loan. Reasons such as reduced income, an expanding family and unforeseen expenses can warrant turning to interest only. Not a choice to be made lightly as there are costs. How much can it cost? A year on interest only, if it means another year on your home loan term, in some sense means another years worth of interest expense. This can be mitigated if there is future ability to accelerate the repayments slightly. So if there is reprieve required for a year but after that year you are able to pay a little extra ..read more