quickymart:

 

Oh well that that rules out that idea - but thanks for explaining it to me. What a weird setup, even if you meet the age criteria - pay this price for this place but you don't own it or anything; may as well rent!

 

I don't have a deposit, sadly, otherwise I would not be asking all these questions. My family are probably my best bet, as property investors. One of my relatives has over 30 years experience as a chartered accountant, so I trust her judgement and she knows what she's talking about. I will have a look at the Welcome Home Loan as I may qualify for that one.

 

As to moving, yes, my boy's needs could possibly be met elsewhere. But my wife and I both have jobs here, so we'd be starting over, and my other boy is making friends at school and settling in. I'm not too fussed with Auckland - I'm not from here anyway, but I'm stuck here for a while now, at least.

 

I would love to move to Wellington but I don't think their mother would want to move...and I hear that housing in Wellington these days isn't exactly much cheaper than Auckland anyway.

 

Thanks for the tips though, some food for thought there.

 

I hate to say it but your latest reply suggests to me that you need to prioritise discussing (and almost certainly sorting out) your finances with a really good budget advisor first. From what I understand, you earn at least above the living wage and your wife also works. I am not saying Auckland isn't expensive but it's concerning to me that you have nothing saved towards a depoisit. Again, try reaching out to one of the community housing organisations - a lot of them provide wrap-around services.

If my experience in volunteering at a community law centre and helping people in financial distress re-structure loans etc and seeing what the budget advisors do day-to-day is anything to go by, you currently basically aren't eligible to take part in any kind of NGO-assisted schemes to get into your own home. A 5% deposit/some skin in the game is seen as essential by typically both the NGOs that want to help people and the banks that may ultimate write some/all of the loans. The other problem that you almost certainly have is that any lender would be concerned about your ability to service a loan in the event of interest rate rise (two major banks currently stress test to an interest rate of around 7%) -- if you can't save any kind of deposit, you just aren't going to get home on that stress test. You also will not ever get anywhere near the best interest rates available.

You say you are hoping that your family might assist you through a win-win solution, with their "win" presumably either a fee/interest for their share of the capital contribution towards the purchase price or the ability to share in the capital gains later. Two things to bear in mind: in assessing your ability to service a loan, lenders must take into account what you are obliged to pay your relatives by way of the fee/interest; if they are looking to cash in on capital gains later (and your relatives aren't just gifting the money to you), I doubt they would be happy with a property sharing agreement with terms whereby you/your family can keep the home for as long as you want to live there, unless you give them some regular returns on the deposit contribution. If your property sharing agreement doesn't clearly articulate when the parties have to sell up, in cases of disagreements you are looking at potential litigation and a court-ordered sale. This is ugly.

Regardless of how one looks at it, your situation and numbers don't strike me as having much likelihood of working until the finances are sorted out.