rhysb1987

now that I've got a house sorted, and hopefully furnished from this weekend, my attention now turns to buying a car.

I'm on a WTR visa, so just wondering if anyone else has any experience in either obtaining a loan/finance or a lease?

Any advice would be invaluable!

barnsleymat

What you've got to take into consideration is cars really hold their value here, you'll buy a car, run it for 3 years and sell it on for nearly as much as you paid for it.

It might not be quite the case at the higher end of the market but in the under 10k range that's certainly the case.

escapedtonz

If you are on a temporary visa you should only be able to get finance that takes you to the normal expiry of the visa so in the case of a WTR visa that will be 2 years from the date of arrival less however many months you've been here.
This will dictate how much you will be able to borrow depending on how much you can afford to pay in finance over the months you have remaining on that visa, so for arguments sake let's say you can afford to pay $500 per month in finance payments and you have 20 months left on the visa - you'll only be able to borrow $9500 ish taking into account you have to pay fees for the loan establishment and interest.
should be the same with leasing. You should not be able to lease a vehicle past the expiry of your temporary visa date.
Won't matter that you may intend on staying in nz for the rest of your days by securing a resident visa etc. That is no guarantee at the moment so the finance company can only consider you for the term of stay that is currently approved.