As a mortgage adviser I’ve been asked a lot of questions over the years, but two that often pop up are:
Why should I use a mortgage adviser?
What do you do to get home loans approved that is so much different?
Instead of just talking about this and answering these questions as they come up, I thought I would go one step further and actually show you.
This example is specifically a home loan application for a first home buyer, but a similar process would be applied to other loan applications too.
How We Prepare A Mortgage Application
There are a few steps that we go through and it all starts with a conversation to discuss what it is that you want to do and at this stage we also we explain what we will require and how we get that information.
We use clever software to make the process easier.
You can book an appointment, an online meeting or a phone call online at a time when an adviser is free.
We have an online application that should take no more than 15-minutes to complete. It’s definitely not the cheapest software, but most people complement us on this so we’re pretty sure that it’s one of the best.
The software will ask for the supporting information, but we will generally email you a list too.
Once you complete the application we get notified and will start our assessment.
We then start to look more closely at the supporting information and the application.
This Is How We Prepare An Application
We have put together a video that explains how we prepare a mortgage application.
It gives a good overview of what we do, and hopefully an insight to why to use a mortgage adviser too.
We hope that you have found this video explainer useful.
Please feel free to share this too.
Let’s Look At The Supporting Information
When doing a mortgage application we ask for the supporting information so we can check the detail and make sure that the lenders know your situation.
Identification
We need to have the declaration and ID for every application. We always check that the ID is valid, your names are spelt correctly and that you have the right Visa is you were not born in New Zealand or on a New Zealand passport.
Credit Checks
We will do a credit check which does let us know if there are any problems with your credit score, or any defaults that may make it look like you have bad credit. These reports also show any credit accounts that you have including any buy now pay later which can be forgotten, but also can be problematic with home loan applications.
Checking Proof of Income
We review the documents to ensure that we are calculating the income correctly and including whatever we can. Payslips show us what you earn, but also how your pay is made up and will let us know if you have a student loan and what you are contributing to KiwiSaver.
We also request your IRD summary of earnings which tells us what your taxable income was over the past 12-months and who was paying you. This information is important when checking to see if you can apply for any of the loans or grants offered by Kainga Ora where there are limitations on income.
Bank Statements
We ask people to use an automated system to upload the bank statements as this ensures that we get all the statements needed and also it has some features that sort your income and expenditure.
Credit Card and Loan Statements
we review these too as they show any lender how you have been paying your existing debts and of course confirms what is owing.
KiwiSaver & First Home Grant
If you plan to use KiwiSaver or the First Home Grant then we will ask you to get the correct proof for these.
As we are putting the application together we are looking at everything the way a lender at the bank will, and so we want to identify anything that they may see as a negative and make sure we can address these in advance.
Selecting The Best Bank
Not all banks are the same.
Once we have checked that we are working with the correct information, we can check and test what banks your application will work with. We have the banks assessment tools inbuilt with our system so we can check various banks and non-bank lenders.
Whenever possible we will select the bank that either has the best offering (the best deal) for you or the best featured loans. This is assessed on what you require and your unique situation.
You can contact us and we can start the application with you.
