When it comes to buying your first home, one of the trickiest parts can be pulling together your deposit. But thankfully, many first home buyers are eligible to use their KiwiSaver savings as part of this deposit.
While KiwiSaver is generally thought of as a retirement savings scheme, it can be called upon for the purchase of your first home. And you might be surprised just how much is in your KiwiSaver account, especially if you have been contributing for a number of years.
In order to draw down on your KiwiSaver, there are a number of eligibility criteria that you need to meet. We recommend talking to a mortgage advisor to go over this criteria in depth, however we outline some of the main criteria below.
You need to have been contributing to KiwiSaver for a minimum of three years.
You must be buying your first home. If you’ve previously owned a home, you could still be eligible to use your KiwiSaver as long as you no longer have any share in that home and are in a similar position to a first home buyer. You must also meet all of the other criteria.
You need to plan to live in the home you are buying for at least six months, or build a home to live in on the land that you are purchasing. You cannot use KiwiSaver to buy an investment property or additional property.
If you satisfy all of the criteria, you are then eligible to draw down on all of the money in your KiwiSaver account, minus the $1,000 government Kick Start Payment. This means if you have $30,000 in your account, you are eligible to draw down on $29,000 of this.
In order to use your funds for a purchase, you need to get in touch with your KiwiSaver provider and advise them you wish to use the funds. You will be required to fill in the withdrawal form and provide evidence that you meet the eligibility criteria. Your provider will then process your withdrawal request and pay the money directly to your solicitor who will use it to pay your deposit.
This whole process can take a number of weeks and can be a bit of back and forth, so we encourage you to get in touch with us and we can help you manage the KiwiSaver withdrawal process.
If you aren’t quite ready to buy, but are keen to use your KiwiSaver to buy a home in the near future, then get in touch with us as we can give you recommendations around your KiwiSaver funds to help protect your savings from the economic instability.
Using your KiwiSaver to buy your first home is a great way to help boost your deposit. If you’d like to discuss the eligibility criteria, then get in touch. There are also a number of other deposit-boosting government incentives that you might be eligible for and we can also discuss these with you.
Get in touch with our local mortgage advisors on 0800 005 676