It is tool to help you improve your deposit, income, and or lending criteria ingredients of your mortgage-cake, so you can be ready to buy your first home.

The downloadable PDF has two main sections. The first section is where you record your goal. The second section is a list of general recommendations  from which you can choose actions that might apply to your situation. 

01  Identify your goal(s), whether it be to increase your deposit to a certain amount, improve your income type, increase your income amount, address your short-term debt and/or improve your account conduct.

02  Download and print the applicable Action Plan.

03  Complete Step 1 on the Action Plan(s) by recording your goal. 

04  Post the Action Plan where you will see it frequently, i.e., the wall or fridge. This will help you stay focused.

05  Complete Step 2 on the Action Plan(s) by choosing and completing actions from the list of general recommendations that apply to you.

06  Tick off all actions that you have completed.

07 When you have reached your goal(s) for all three ingredients of your mortgage-cake (deposit, income and lending criteria) and think you are mortgage-ready, feel free to schedule a free Home Purchase Readiness Consultation, so we can assess your mortgage-readiness at that time.

The Action Plans are designed to help you reach 5 main goals:

01  Increase your deposit to at least 10% of your proposed purchase price - Deposit Action Plan

02  Improve your income type to one that is stable and documented - Income Action Plan

03  Improve your income amount to one that can service your proposed lending amount - Income Action Plan

04  Address any issues with short-term debt - Lending Criteria Action Plan

05  Improve your account conduct - Lending Criteria Action Plan

The videos in the free Get Mortgage-Ready Hub help you identify if you need to address any of the 5 above goals. If you watch the videos and decide you need to improve your mortgage-readiness, you can use the Action Plans to help you do so.

It only takes about 15-20 minutes to watch all 8 videos. It is worth taking the time to prepare properly for buying your first home.

Everyone's situation is different, so you should use an Action Plan for as long as you need to reach your goal. For some people it might be 3 months, but for others it might be a year. It all depends on what your goal is and how long it takes for you to reach it.

Tip: Staying focused on your goal helps you reach it faster. This is why we suggest you print and post your Action Plan on a wall or fridge.

First, make sure you have reached your goal(s) for all 3 mortgage-cake ingredients: deposit, income, and lending criteria.

When you have reached your goal(s), it is time to get your mortgage-readiness assessed. Feel free to schedule a free Home Purchase Readiness Consultation, so we can help you with the next steps.

The Get Mortgage-Ready Hub is a free video hub where you can learn all about deposits, income, and lending criteria. These are the three main ingredients to a mortgage application - or mortgage-cake as we playfully call it.

The hub also has videos on mortgage debt reduction and how to decide if you are mortgage-ready. 

It is designed to equip New Zealand's first home buyers, so they can be ready to buy their first home.

Joining the hub is optional, but we do encourage it. The videos in the hub help you identify if you need to address any of the 5 goals that the Action Plans address.

No, but it is encouraged.

The hub is designed to, first, teach you about all three mortgage-cake ingredients (deposits, income, and lending criteria) and the icing (mortgage debt reduction).  

Once you have learned about all four topics, the "Am I Mortgage-Ready" video pulls it all together to help you decide if you need to address any issues you may have.

Equipped with knowing if you are mortgage-ready or not, then you can move on to either inquiring about how much you can borrow, booking a Home Purchase Readiness Consultation or starting an Action Plan.

Some people who join the hub may be looking for specific information, so they choose to skip to what they are looking for. That is okay too.