Buying a first home in New Zealand runs through a fairly consistent sequence of stages, even though every purchase feels different while you're in it. Knowing the shape of that sequence in advance — what happens before you're even looking at listings, and what happens after your offer is accepted — makes each individual decision easier, because you know what it's actually for.
1. Work out what you can actually borrow
Before looking at a single listing, talk to a bank or a mortgage adviser about how much you can borrow. A mortgage adviser can compare offers across several lenders rather than just one bank's policy, and doesn't usually cost you anything directly — they're paid by the lender. Ask for a pre-approval, not just an estimate: pre-approval is a conditional written offer that carries weight with a real estate agent and vendor once you're making offers.
As part of this, work out your deposit. For many first home buyers in New Zealand, that deposit is a mix of savings and a KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal, sometimes alongside a First Home Grant if you're eligible. Both of these have eligibility rules and dollar thresholds that change over time, so check the current criteria directly with Kāinga Ora or your KiwiSaver provider rather than relying on a figure you've seen elsewhere — this is one area worth getting current, first-party information on before you budget around it.
2. Decide what you're actually looking for
"Anywhere in budget" is rarely a useful search. Narrowing down location, must-haves, and deal-breakers before you start looking saves a lot of wasted open-home visits. Commute time to work, school zones if that matters to you, and whether you're open to a unit title or want a standalone section are worth deciding in advance, because they're the filters that cut a long list down to a short one.
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3. Search, and keep a record as you go
Once you start looking seriously, you'll usually be tracking more properties than you can hold in your head — a few from each portal, a couple an agent mentioned, one your friend forwarded. This is the point where a lot of buyers lose track of which place had the good kitchen but the busy road, and which had school zones but was over budget. Keeping every property you're seriously considering in one place, with your own notes attached, is the entire reason OurHouse's watchlists exist — see how it works for the full feature set.
4. Make an offer — usually conditional
In New Zealand, most residential sales go through a standard sale and purchase agreement, and most first home buyers make theirs conditional rather than unconditional. Common conditions include finance approval, a satisfactory building inspection, a satisfactory LIM report, and confirmation of insurance availability. Each condition has a deadline written into the agreement — this window is usually called the due diligence period, and it's the time to actually order and read those reports rather than leave them until the last day.
Two articles worth reading before you're in this stage: what a LIM report actually covers, and what a building inspection does and doesn't check. If the property is going to auction or a deadline sale rather than a standard listing, the conditions process works differently — see auction vs private treaty for how that changes things.
5. Work through your conditions
During the due diligence period, you're typically doing several things in parallel: getting the building inspection done, ordering and reading the LIM, confirming your finance is unconditional with your lender, checking insurance is available for the property before you're locked in, and having your lawyer or conveyancer review the title and the agreement itself. If anything raises a real concern, this is the window to renegotiate, ask the vendor to fix it, or walk away — once every condition is satisfied and the agreement goes unconditional, you're committed.
6. Get to settlement
Between going unconditional and settlement day, your lawyer handles the legal transfer, your lender releases funds, and you'll usually do a pre-settlement inspection to confirm the property is in the condition it was when you agreed to buy it — chattels still present, no new damage. Settlement day itself is largely administrative on your end: your lawyer and the vendor's lawyer exchange funds and title, and you get the keys.
Keeping it all straight
None of these stages are individually complicated, but running several properties through different stages at once — one you're still deciding on, one where you're waiting on a LIM, one you've already ruled out — is where it gets hard to keep in your head. That's the gap OurHouse is built to fill: a free workspace for tracking the homes you're considering, the notes and documents attached to each one, and where each one sits in the process.