Mortgage advice needed
 

Hiya,

We are wondering if anyone knows how difficult it is to get a mortgage when you first go to OZ. We don't own a home here in the UK, but my partner has previously owned a home here (we rent now). I am from Oz, but only ever rented there as well.

Ideally we want to buy a house of our own, probably about 6 months after moving to Oz and settling in. Is it difficult to get a mortgage because of the above reasons, or even because my partner will not have permanent residency for the two year waiting period?

Also can anyone recommend some good lenders to see about mortgages? I know of Aussie home loans, and the banks, but as I have not bought before it is all new to me. Have read some people's threads about self certifying, but I don't really understand what this entails.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Re: Mortgage advice needed
 

Hi, well it is a little different here. I'll give you a couple a couple of bullet points re. stuff that we discovered (we're moving into our first home here next week!)

* if you have 20% deposit or more you don't have to pay the lenders mortgage insurance (LMI)
* if you have 10% deposit or more you do not to prove its origin
* however, if you have any less than 10%, you must show that it has come from a house sale (ie. with proof of sale of property) or it is described as 'genuine savings' which means you've saved it ENTIRELY over a minimum of 3 months (this period of time changes from lender to lender...a lot require 6 months)...the ideology apparantly is that if you've worked hard to save it, you're less likely to default on mortgage payments!?)
* we had an unusual situation, but after providing a paper trail of where the money has been since the 'sale' we were successful in getting the mortgage we wanted
* they have the 'non-conforming loan' which is for self-employed and other unusual circumstances, but you suffer higher interest rates..avoid if possible
* not sure but I believe as long as one of you has the right to buy in Oz, the status of the person does not matter. not sure about the First Home Owners Grant though
*would totally recommend our broker, she's great and works the whole of the Eastern seaboard right down to Melbourne (she's in Brissy, just down the road from us) PM me if you want any details

Good luck :D

Re: Mortgage advice needed
 

Good info! Thanks. We just bought and move in at the end of the month. We were asked to provide 6 months of savings account balance. Now I know why.
* We had some difficulty because I was working as a contractor and my wife is permanent part-time. As a contractor it was NO even though we passed the means test and were given pre-aproval! After I got a fixed work (earning the same money) we were given the OK but only after probation of 3 months.
It was the morgage insurer who was the stumling block.
*There is a cool of of 3 days after signing an offer.
*Only then will the lender contact the mortgage insurer.
*As soon as the cool has passed the buyer is responsible for the insurance! even when the bank or attorneys have done nothing.
*We got the $7000 first buyer approval, that took a day and a bit.
However the legal and transfer costs (stamp duty etc) eat all of that!
Lenders are many. we used Wizard who almost guarantee a saving but there are many lenders and morgage brokers.
Check flickyourbank.com or com.au (cant remember)
i was told they are mostly ex bank home lenders whose service was terminated but then paid by the banks to find borrowers. I think it is a good system!
It worked out the cheapest was the no frills, pay all your salary into the homeloan and draw from there to pay credit card.
Also I was issued a card by the bank and even though I use it sparingly and pay it all, they took the total it could max to, as a debt.
Some charge monthly fees, set up fees etc and then lower interest.

Re: Mortgage advice needed
 

Hello

Because one of you is a citizen and the other with PR, there should be no problem with the residency issue. I believe (from a friend in Aus who had this issue) if both of you are temp there can be a million extra queries, however as you cannot abscond with a house you should be able to get one even in these circumstances.

When I got a mortgage in Aus (pre Nigel) I needed to prove employment past the probationary period. If you are planning to wait 6 months before buying this should not be a problem. Also if you are planning on being an ordinary employee (not contract, sub contract or anything else) it is MUCH easier to get a mortgage.

The self certification that exists in the UK does not really exist the same way in Aus, and the other poster was totally correct you will pay a large premium for the privilege of being outside the normal applicant range.

As far as a specific lender goes, it is really down to what they are offering you on an individual basis. If you want to just assess on rates try;
http://www.apimagazine.com.au/rates/
might at least give you a place to start and names to look at.

If neither of you have ever owned property in Aus go for the first home buyers grant! You will get this and the extra $7k is worth it for the paperwork.

Good Luck

Re: Mortgage advice needed
 

Wife and I arrived in October last year as temporary residents.
Within one month we had secured a large mortgage but we did have 25% desposit and a job secured.
That was with the National Aus Bank

Andrew

Re: Mortgage advice needed
 

Hey thanks all. This is very positive news - we should have at least 10% deposit, probably 20%, so that side of things is ok.

Need to start googling banks / lenders I guess! Just to see what sort of options are out there.

If we could find a house within 6 months of arriving that would be great - I think we are just assuming that the first stop will be a hotel, then a rental, then find a nice house to buy.

S

Re: Mortgage advice needed
 

My brother and his wife managed to buy a house within a month. They stayed at a friends home (who was away on holiday for a month) and moved in having nothing. They slept on the floor and within the first day or two the neighbours brought kettle sheets etc to use. Their container arrived a month after that.
He was lucky because when he said he was migrating, his boss said he wanted him to transfer. So he moved here and started work so the hotel then renting like most of us have to do never happened!
If you buy a house the cutrains stay with the house which we had never sen before. We are in Queensland Mackay? I suppose you are going to the bigger cities. I have a paper here and it says in the last year housing has increased in price by 43% in Mackay in one year. The rest are on a down at the moment. Brisbane only increase 1.5%. Sunday Mail 4 Sept

Re: Mortgage advice needed
 

i agree a good broker can save the day and yourselves a lot of hassle...

Re: Mortgage advice needed
 

Yeh, we'd done our own research too, and knew our preferred lender and also the product we wanted, but we let the broker do her thing. At the beginning, because our case was a bit unusual, we thought we might've had to get a non-conforming loan, but we sorted out the paper trail required and it meant we had offers from all the major lenders we were considering.

Re: Mortgage advice needed
 

Some other related things
When you go to a homeloan company they will want to also see that you have credit worthiness and that you are / have been earning for the last year. (acually the mortgage insurer. So you need 100 ID points for a bank account but we brought Tax papers form the home country ( we were not sure why at the time) to prove we earn and have been for a few years. I guess you only need to have this if you buy within a year of starting work.
100 ID points means stuff like passport credit card birth cert driverd licence (local is worth heaps more)