Each week the NZ Herald's Cooking the Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's how to get ready so the bank's more likely to say yes to a mortgage. Hosted by Frances Cook.

We all know that house prices are soaring, making it harder than ever to scrape a deposit together.

The trick is, when you're talking to a bank, getting approved for a mortgage isn't a black and white process.

The bank does have a little bit of discretion. Just not much.

They're charged with making sure they don't give you so much debt that it crushes you – which means, if you can show that you're financially a safe pair of hands, they might let you through with a smaller deposit than others.

It's all about speaking the bank's love language. So what can you do to stand out from the herd?

In the latest podcast I talked to Rupert Gough from Mortgage Lab.

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/ Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/francescooknz/ and Twitter here https://twitter.com/FrancesCook

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