‍Hayden Shearman is one of 1000s trying to buy into the Auckland property market. He shares his experiences on how he has made the process more bearable.

My wife and I are hoping to become new homeowners. The trouble is that we live in Auckland. Gulp.

We’re staring down the barrel of, not only a hefty mortgage with hefty repayments, but also a market that seems to be doing everything it can to keep us out of it. So this is why it’s been so crucial for us to have a Velocity Financial mortgage adviser batting on our team, doing a Brendon McCullum or us, knocking a few sixes and digging out a few swinging yorkers.

At the end of last year we teamed up with a Velocity Financial adviser to get pre-approved so we could put our best foot forward when it came to putting down offers and tenders. Over the past few months, while banks have introduce new lending restrictions and property prices have gone up by the minute, our mortgage adviser has guided us through everything from paper work to tender strategies. He’s been crucial to us maintaining sanity and having the courage to keep searching and bidding.

To get us rolling, our adviser dealt with an avalanche of complicated accounts from multiple income streams (oh, the joys of being self-employed and having a less than ideal previous 12 months). He had to work with various bank departments (business and personal) to get our application over the line and even fast tracked our preapprovals on several occasions so we were ready to go to auction with the support of our bank.

As it’s turned out, we’ve come painfully close in a couple of bids and woefully short in more than I can count. But Velocity has kept us in the game and I’m sure that a window into this rampant property market will pop up for us soon.

So, to finish up, I thought I’d share three quick tips that particularly helped us make the most of our Velocity Financial mortgage broker. Some ideas on how you might go about nagging your broker effectively:

1) Treat them as your translator: Real estate agents, banks, lawyers—they all have their own language and jargon, it’s okay to ask your mortgage broker to interpret all the legalese.

2) Ask questions: If you’re an auction- or tender-virgin like I was, it’s important to have someone you can trust to give you sound advice and equip you with a game plan.

3) Use the help videos: Finding all the bank statements and files for a mortgage application can be like pulling teeth. I found the instruction videos for downloading statements for various banks super helpful, especially when you belong to five different banks as I do!

Guest blog written by Hayden Shearman, Velocity Financial client.