Gaining Pre-approval

The first step to gaining pre-approval is arranging a meeting with the Bank.

Booking a meeting with us is quick and easy - you can either drop in to your nearest SBS Bank branch or phone our helpful Contact Centre team on 0800 727 2265. These meetings can either take place in person if you live close to a branch, or via a call for your convenience.

Once you have a date and time for your meeting it's time to gather your documents. Banks need access to a few different bits and pieces to help determine whether you're able to be pre-approved, including pay-slips and bank statements. You can find out more about these items below.

The first thing you need to bring along to your pre-approval meeting is proof of Citizenship, Permanent Residency or Resident Visas.

If you are a New Zealand Citizen, this means you will need to bring your New Zealand Passport or Birth Certificate. If you are a permanent resident or resident you will need to  provide a copy of your Permanent Resident Visa or Resident Visa.

You also need to provide identification so that we can make sure it's really you! An explanation of acceptable forms of ID can be found here.

In order to borrow from a Bank you have to be able to prove that your income will allow you to meet all of your mortgage repayments. To help with this you need to provide a few different documents as proof of your income. These documents are needed for each person that will be buying the house, so if you're buying with someone else they'll also need to provide this information.

For Wage or Salary Earners:

- An ‘Earnings last 12 months’ statement from the IRD 

- At least three recent consecutive payslips

- An original signed letter from your employer that states your income, start date and length of time employed (you can use a copy of your employment contract if it is no more than six months old)

For Seasonal Workers

As well as the above, you must also provide confirmation of the past three years annual accounts or IRD Tax Returns.

For Self-Employed Workers

If you are self-employed you will need to provide full financials supported by business and personal tax returns from the past two years.

If you have received any government subsidies in the last 12 months, such as from Working for Families, WINZ, ACC or IRD, you'll also need to provide written confirmation from the relevant organisation of income received.

The next thing that a Bank needs to know is what your regular incomings and outgoings look like, which is why you're asked to provide bank statements for all of your accounts and credit cards for the last three months.

The great news is that if you have all of your banking with SBS we can already access this information, meaning one less job for you!

If you have accounts with another bank you'll need to provide bank statements for each account over the last three months. Similarly, if you have a credit card you'll also need to provide statements covering the last three months of activity.

The next thing you'll need to provide is proof of your deposit. Depending on where the funds for your deposit are coming from there are different documents that you'll need to gather.

Savings

Bank statements that show the last three months of savings history.

KiwiSaver

Official confirmation, such as a letter, from your KiwiSaver provider that states your KiwiSaver balance and the amount available to be used as a deposit.

Home Start Grant

A copy of your pre-approval confirmation letter from Kāinga Ora for the Home Start Grant.

Gifted Funds

A completed Gifting Declaration form signed by the family member that is helping you with your deposit.

You may be using funds from all of these sources or only some - you only need to provide the documents that are relevant for your deposit.

As part of the pre-approval process the Bank will ask you for information on how much you spend on your regular expenses, such as power, internet, food, subscriptions and more. This is used to help calculate the level of mortgage repayments that you can afford, which affects the overall amount that you are able to lend.

Having an idea of how much you spend on different items each month before you meet with the Bank will help make this process much easier, and will ensure that your serviceability is calculated fairly. Before your meeting, think about how much you would spend each month on average on items such as:

- groceries
- power
- internet
- subscriptions
- insurance
- petrol
- any other regular expenses

If you have a student loan you should also know your current balance, as this will affect the overall amount that you can borrow. If you are unsure what your current balance is you can check with the IRD.

Take a deep breath, you’ve got this!

Now that you have all your documents you're ready to meet with the Bank. The team may still ask you for more information to help assess whether you meet the criteria for pre-approval, but if you've gathered all the information above you'll be off to a great start.

Our SBS Banking Specialists are especially trained to help first home buyers, so don’t be afraid to ask questions if you don’t understand – there are no stupid questions when you’re a first home buyer!

Once the Bank has collected and reviewed all your information they'll get in touch to let you know whether you've been successful in gaining pre-approval. If you've been given pre-approval they'll let you know exactly how much you can borrow so you can begin the next step of the home buying process...house hunting!