by Chris | Aug 12, 2026 | Buying Guides
If KiwiSaver is the first piece of the deposit puzzle, the Kāinga Ora First Home Loan is usually the second. Used together, they are the most common pathway first-home buyers use to get into the market with less than a standard 20% deposit. This article builds on our...
by Chris | Aug 7, 2026 | Buying Guides, NextMove Explained
Our previous article looked at what buyer readiness actually means across financial, informational, and practical dimensions. This one gets concrete: how to prepare for home ownership, in what order, and how long each stage takes. Timelines vary buyer to buyer. The...
by Chris | Jul 31, 2026 | Buying Guides, NextMove Explained
Ask ten people what it means to be ‘buyer ready’ and most will say some version of ‘having a big enough deposit’. That is part of it, but only part. Deposit size is the easiest thing to picture, which is exactly why it dominates the...
by Chris | Jul 29, 2026 | Buying Guides
KiwiSaver comes up in almost every conversation about buying a first home in New Zealand, but a surprising number of members do not fully understand how their own scheme works. That matters, because the intricacies (contribution rates, government contributions, and...
by Chris | Jul 10, 2026 | Mini Series - Financial Services
Most first-home buyers make at least one mistake during the mortgage process. That’s not a criticism. It reflects how complex the process is and how little formal education most people receive before they need to navigate it. The good news is that most of these...
