Frequently asked questions

MortgageReady is a cloud-based mortgage readiness calculator built specifically for New Zealanders. You build a profile with your household income, savings, KiwiSaver balances, living expenses, and existing debts — and the app tells you how much you can borrow, what your affordability score is, and what you can do to improve your position before meeting a bank or broker.

Primarily first-home buyers and anyone planning to buy a property in the next 1–3 years who wants to understand their financial position before approaching a lender. It works equally well for individuals and households with multiple applicants (up to four). It is not designed for active property investors managing large portfolios.

Yes. NZ income tax brackets, the ACC earners' levy, KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal rules, RBNZ debt-to-income caps, Kāinga Ora First Home Loan eligibility, and bank stress-test rates are all applied automatically. The app is built for Kiwis and does not support overseas users or tax rules.

Yes — an account is required so your profile is saved securely in the cloud and accessible from any device. You can sign up with an email address and password.

Yes for home buyers. Building your profile, borrowing power, affordability score, calculators, document storage, property tracking, sharing, messaging, and PDF exports (summary and comprehensive) are included at no charge. Mortgage brokers use a separate paid product (monthly subscription) to manage clients and exports.

The estimates apply current NZ rules (as at February 2026): progressive income tax and ACC levy are used to calculate net income; the RBNZ 6× gross income DTI cap for owner-occupiers (7× for investors) is enforced; and a 7% stress-test rate is used to check serviceability. Results are accurate to the extent that the information you enter is accurate. They are indicative figures — not a formal pre-approval. Always confirm with a mortgage broker or bank before making financial commitments.

Borrowing power cards and scenarios use whatever rate you set on the rate slider (default 6.5%). The stress test always runs at 7%, which is the rate most NZ banks use internally to assess whether a borrower can still service a loan if rates rise.

Conservative uses 60% of your available monthly budget for mortgage repayments, leaving a 40% buffer. Comfortable uses 75%, leaving 25%. Optimistic uses 90%, leaving 10%. Target calculates the loan amount required to purchase your specific target property. All four are capped by whichever constraint binds first — your monthly serviceability or the RBNZ DTI limit.

The 0–100 score is a composite of four factors: your debt-to-income ratio relative to the RBNZ limit, your loan-to-value ratio, your monthly surplus after all expenses and repayments, and the size of your deposit. Scores of 65+ are rated Ready to Buy (green), 40–64 are Getting There (yellow), and below 40 are Needs Work (red). A bonus is applied for reaching a 20%+ deposit, which unlocks the best bank rates.

The stress test shows whether your monthly budget remains positive if interest rates rise to 7%. Banks are required to test all new lending at this rate before approving it. If your surplus goes negative at 7%, you would not pass a standard bank serviceability assessment even if you could afford repayments at today's rates.

Under the KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal rules, eligible members can withdraw their full balance minus a $1,000 minimum retained balance. Eligibility requires at least three years of contributions. MortgageReady applies this automatically based on your KiwiSaver balance and contribution history — it will show $0 withdrawable if you haven't been contributing for three or more years.

The First Home Loan (previously called Welcome Home Loan) is a government-backed scheme that allows eligible buyers to purchase with a 5% deposit instead of the standard 20%, with Kāinga Ora underwriting the low-equity portion. MortgageReady checks your combined gross income and target property price against the current eligibility caps and shows "5% deposit possible" on your profile if you qualify.

No. MortgageReady does not integrate with banks, KiwiSaver providers, or any financial institution. You enter your balances and contribution history manually. You can upload bank statements as PDF or CSV files to the Bank Statement Analysis tool, which categorises transactions automatically, but this is a one-way upload — the app does not have live read access to your accounts.

Three sources are combined: cash savings, your KiwiSaver first-home withdrawal amount (auto-calculated), and any gifted funds or family loans you add. The app shows your total deposit, the resulting LVR against your target property price, and the gap to the 20% threshold.

The Rate Sensitivity Explorer shows how your borrowing power and monthly surplus change as interest rates move between 4% and 10%. It identifies your "breaking point" — the rate at which your monthly surplus turns negative and you would no longer pass a bank serviceability test. Moving the rate slider updates all four borrowing scenario cards in real time.

The What-If Optimiser analyses your expense categories and shows how a 30% reduction in each one would increase your borrowing power. It also surfaces general tips — such as paying off credit cards first (they count against DTI at 5× the credit limit), increasing KiwiSaver contributions to reach first-home withdrawal eligibility, and getting a pre-approval before house hunting.

Yes. Paste a TradeMe, Realestate.co.nz, or OneRoof listing URL into the Properties Tracker and it saves the property to your profile. MortgageReady immediately classifies the property as affordable, marginal, or over budget based on your current financial position.

Yes. Download a one-page summary PDF for quick meetings, or generate a comprehensive multi-page report covering expenses, debts, deposit breakdown, borrowing scenarios, bank statement insights, and spending optimisation — with customisable sections. You can also share a secure read-only link with your broker.

You can upload bank statements (PDF or CSV) to the Bank Statement Analysis tool. The app extracts and categorises transactions automatically, then generates spending insights and tips to help improve your mortgage readiness position. Your statements are processed via AI and are not retained beyond the analysis request.

Yes — up to four household members can be added, each with their own gross income, other income, KiwiSaver balance and contribution history, and first-home buyer status. All incomes are combined for DTI and serviceability calculations.

You can add mortgage brokers and lenders to your profile with their contact details. For each contact, MortgageReady can generate a professional AI-written engagement letter pre-populated with your financial details and purpose of engagement — ready to copy, download, or send.

Your profile data is stored in a PostgreSQL database hosted by Supabase with row-level security — only you can access your own data. Uploaded documents are stored in Supabase Storage with access restricted to your account. All data is transmitted over HTTPS/TLS encryption. Passwords are hashed via Supabase Auth and we never store or see your plaintext password.

No. Your financial data is never shared with banks, lenders, or third parties without your explicit action. If you choose to generate an engagement letter and send it yourself, that is entirely under your control. We share data only with our infrastructure providers (Supabase for storage, Vercel for hosting, and an AI provider for letter generation and bank statement analysis) — all under strict data processing terms.

Yes. You can export your full profile as JSON at any time, then request account deletion. All personal data — including uploaded documents, saved properties, and your financial profile — is permanently deleted within 30 days. Email privacy@mortgageready.co.nz to request deletion.

When you use AI-powered features (engagement letter generation or bank statement analysis), the relevant data is sent to our AI provider solely to generate the requested content. We do not use your data to train AI models, and the AI provider is contractually prohibited from retaining your data beyond the processing request.