Howmuch deposit do you need for a house?
First-home buyers need to save at least $100,000 in much of the country to even get in the door of their own homes.
Data from Corelogic shows the median prices first-time buyers pay. In Auckland, the median so far this year was $799,000. In Tauranga, it was $600,000, Hamilton about $575,000, Wellington $650,000, and Christchurch just over $400,000.
The Reserve Bank temporarily removed loan-to-value restrictions this year, which required owner-occupiers to have a deposit or equity of 20 per cent. These are set to return early next year, and many lenders have continued to require a 20 per cent deposit anyway.
Only $528 million of lending to first-home buyers in October was at a loan-to-value ratio of more than 80 per cent, of a total $1.4 billion in first-home loans.
This means that deposits of more than $100,000 were required in all the main centres except Dunedin and Christchurch, where buyers would need about $90,000. Wellington buyers would have to save $130,000.
An Auckland first-home buyer could expect to need $159,800, and a Queenstown buyer $165,400. The median firsthome buyer price for the country of $565,000 would require a deposit of $113,000.
Corelogic head of research Nick Goodall said his firm estimated that a person on an average wage and buying a home at the national median price would need to save 15 per cent of their income for nine years.
He said deposit requirements were ‘‘getting higher and higher’’.
Kiwisaver is helping but not providing the whole amount. In September, $137.4m was withdrawn from KiwiSaver for first-home purchases by 5010 people, at an average $27,527 each.
Mortgage broker Glen Mcleod, of Edge Mortgages, said it was hard work for buyers to pull a deposit together.
Few qualified for First Home Loans, which allow a 5 per cent deposit for people who earn less than $130,000 as a couple and are buying below the price cap, which varies according to region.
He said he saw a large number of buyers needing parents’ help to purchase. Also, banks were cracking down on how they calculated buyers’ expenses.
Once in the door, mortgage payments are often quite manageable by comparison. Corelogic worked out that on a 2.5 per cent interest rate, a median first-home buyer mortgage in Auckland would be $1066 a fortnight, $257 more than rent.
Corelogic data showed that the cheapest first homes in the country were in Wairoa, where first-time buyers had spent a little over $200,000 each so far this year.