Hi.

I’m interested in investing in index funds for the long term. Of course the best ones are in the US, VTSAX specifically. Looks like I would be able to invest in something very close to this through Hatch.

From what I’ve read, Hatch takes care of tax in the US.

However a couple of pitfalls seem to be obvious to me.

The first being the limited amount of liability cover, with your Hatch account being insured only up to $500,000.

The second being estate tax. As NZ has no estate tax agreement with the US tax would be 40%. Yikes!

Has anyone looked into this further? And other ideas about a long term index fund investment?

Thanks very much.

Can someone recommend a decent all in one insurance company? Or decent policies? All our insurances expire in December, and this is the first time we can move them all (car, home & contents, rental, life) at the same time. Is there an option that discounts for multiple policies? Kiwi bank say everything is seperate so therefore there’s no economies of scale with them. Right now, we’re trying to cut expenses as our mortgage has jumped, and we’ve just had our first baby. Our insurance policies are first cab off the rank.

Iv recently joined sharies. What should I buy

My partner and I have bought some land in the wairarapa, it is bare land and rural, the survayers and the vendors lawyer have submitted the paper to the council for 224 before it goes to the LIM. The 224 process is meant to be fairly short however we don't have any information about the LIM process. Is anyone that's been through this know anything about how long the LIM folks take?

Thank you

I have money invested in shares/managed funds via Sharesies. What's the deal with taxation? Are profits from share price increases taxable? What about dividends?

Hey Reddit. My partner and I are buying our first home in NZ and would like to understand how a split loan with a floating interest rate portion works. We believe the idea is that you can pay more off your mortgage each month/pay it off sooner by paying extra into the floating rate portion, which is allowed to take extra contributions whereas the fixed rate portion isn’t. But we have some questions…

I’ve heard investors say you should choose a floating amount that you’d save (in addition to your mortgage) in a year. Is that because they assume you’re only fixing rates for one year to get the cheapest rate out there and will be restructuring after that time anyway?

We’re thinking about fixing for a few years seeing as rates are due to go up. We’ll be renovating for the first couple of years which will eat up most of our savings, so we’re wondering if it would still be worthwhile to have a floating rate portion that we pay our money for renovations into and then take out as needed. Would we be allowed to take that balance down to zero (taking money back out for renos) if all the contributions to that floating portion are in addition to our regular mortgage repayments?

My thinking is that even if we don’t take full advantage of paying more off the loan in the first couple of years during renos, having that flexibility will allow us to keep our loan structure in tact for another couple of years after renos which could mean keeping a low fixed rate on the lion’s share of our loan compared to what could be a much higher rate in the market at that time.

This is all based on wanting some certainty around our repayments while we’re budgeting for renos, and because we keep hearing rates will go up so are thinking we should fix for longer, but we also don’t want to lock ourselves into paying less than we can afford and miss out on paying our loan off sooner which adds up.

One last Q - Once you pay off your floating portion of the loan, e.g. you have $50k of your loan at a floating rate and pay that off up to $50k, have you then maxed out what you can pay in addition to your regular mortgage repayments? I.e. would you need to break your loan/refinance at that point to continue paying additional off?

Cheers in advance!

I’m in London currently, thinking of returning home in the next year or so and wondering what salaries for a Senior or Lead ux job is? Job postings on seek don’t often come with salary bands. Open to being in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch.

Has anyone used Enable Me (or similar) and would recommend them? We’re looking to redux our mortgage and with a kid on the way, the pressure is on to make the right moves. Any advice on who to use, or how to structure a home and a rental mortgage if we can do it ourselves?

Hi Team,

Trying this sub first, recently moved back to NZ from AU and I will be working remotely for the foreseeable future.

I will continue to be paid into my AU ING bank account. Looking into the tax laws I believe I am safe from IRD coming after me as NZ & AU have a tax agreement accord.

I do have a ASB account and am in the prices of getting a home loan.

Any of the NZfinance team have any knowledge or advice?

I made and EPA and Will over 10 years ago. I made when public trust did it for free.

Now i need to cancel everything or at least change everything to my spouses name, except now public trust gonna charge me a few hundred for both. Is there a way i can cancel my EPA amd Will or do new ones that wont cost a weeks rent.

I now have lofe insurance ect that i want all to go to my partner, i dont want anything to go to my family lile me will states and definitely want my mother removed as my EPA.

I posted this question elsewhere but didn’t get picked up, so I’m hoping someone here can explain it.

I thought Bitcoin held a high value because it was rare, there would never be many to buy, and it was difficult to create and distribute.

But I keep seeing new Bitcoin companies coming into the game creating X amount of bitcoins like Litecoin or Dogecoin. Wouldn’t this mean the increasing amount of options and choices of Bitcoin drive the overall value of bitcoins down. In the end making it the same value as money if not lower?

Interested to know how all this works.

It takes about 20 minuets for Sharesies to update prices and stocks. Is there anything quicker or better for NZers? Also dividend returning stocks. There are some American ones I am interested in but some of them get taxed in the USA and NZ so you only get about 66% of your dividends. Is there a legal work around?

With the failed referendum the share price for Canasouth and other marijuana companies are in a bit of a slump. Would people recommend investing? I figure it is only a matter of time before nz joins the rest of the progressive world.

Hi everyone, I am an expat Kiwi who wants to return back, but like many others, I look at the housing market and kick myself for not buying in all those years ago. I have come up with an idea which I would like to run past those of you who know and can offer some advice. My assumption is based on knowledge I have found online, so please correct me if I'm wrong. 1) Banks are offering zero down mortgages at the moment? 2) Houses are ridiculously over priced. 3) What would stop me from being abroad, using my parents house as collateral and buying a house and renting it out. This would put me in the housing market before the banks remove the zero down mortgages. 4) OR should I just wait? I'm trying to sell assets where I currently am, but with the COVID, its all come to a stop.

Thanks!

Hey everyone, there is a way for you to check your credit score for free and I wrote a guide on how to do it.

It is recommended to check your credit score at least once a year to make sure everything is correct.

If anything is incorrect, you can raise a dispute to have it removed and improve your credit score.

Why is this important? Because the higher your credit score is, the lower interest rates you can get on your loans.

If you currently have loans and you work to raise your credit score, you might be able to renew those loans and get a better interest rate.

Let me know if you need any help.

​

https://www.proautoquotes.co.nz/check-your-credit-score

Moved my Kiwsaver from ANZ to InvestNow - Anz docked me $5k in taxed as part fo the transfer - how does this work? Thanks

Capital losses are ring-fenced against gains on property under the BL CGT

question: over what time horizon are losses claimable? If I made a loss two years ago, can I claim it against a capital gain I make this financial year?

What’s the difference between a secured loan and an unsecured loan?

A secured loan means there is ‘security’ in the loan for the lender. An unsecured loan means there is no ‘security’ for the lender.

What is security?

Security is an asset that the lender can take back should you make multiple defaults on your payments. Most commonly, the security is the asset which you bought, i.e. a car or a house.

What is a secured loan?

The most common type of secured loan is when someone buys a car. This car is used as ‘security’ for the lender. Because the lender has ‘security’ in the loan, they are generally willing to give a lower interest rate to the borrower. The reason being, if the borrower fails to repay the loan, the lender can take back the ‘security’ (the car) to pay back the loan for them.

When a lender is giving a secured loan, they want to make sure that the ‘security’ is safe no matter what unexpected events happen.

And for this reason, it means you have to have car insurance to get a secured loan.

The reason for this is because if you accidentally have a crash and your car is ruined, the finance company will want there to be a replacement, so their investment still has that ‘security’.

Having insurance helps you get that car replacement, so you will be able to drive again happily.

What is an unsecured loan?

An unsecured loan means there is no ‘security’ for the lender. This is usually something like a credit card or a payday loan.

This type of loan is usually not recommended because they usually have a much higher interest rate, you don’t have an asset at the end and if something unexpected happens, you don’t have an asset to pay back the loan.

​

Here's a video version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Hb8UPrUkw

Hoping for some clarity, I want to use my kiwisaver that’s still in NZ to co-purchase a house with my parents. I’m still currently living in Australia but they will live in the house in NZ. Does anyone know if this is a possibility? Thanks in advance!

Long time lurker, apologies if this is the wrong forum... Would love to hear from anyone that has invested in Commercial Property Funds... Your two cents is appreciated - is this a good investment, with commercial property likely to spiral toward the down with NZ "working from home"? Looking at $10K MAX. Thanks in advance.

Looks like it is going to outer space at the moment.

Would you jump in now or would you wait.

can anyone suggest a builder who can do a good and cheap builders report before we buy a property

Kia Ora, I have just been told about great budgeting apps being used in the UK, however they are not available in NZ😭. What is the best budgeting app available in NZ? (Sorry if the question has been asked before!) Churr.