There is a reasonable chance you have already heard about the phenomenal rates being offered almost across the board now with most banks having rate specials down into the 3%'s.

What you may not be aware of is that you don’t necessarily need to wait until your current fixed rates expire in order to take advantage of these very low rates.

It’s been an interesting start to 2017 with a much tighter credit market than what we have seen for the majority of the last decade. While the majority of the media has been concentrating on the fact that the market seems to have slowed since the 40% deposit rule introduction I put more down to banks themselves pulling back in regards to.....




 

After both the RBNZ and the Government not implementing any significant property related changes in May in regards to the RBNZ’s Financial Stability Report and the Budget, respectively the RBNZ has this morning put a 40% restriction on the banks in regards to investment lending.....


 
 

We have been commenting on this for a while and it appears that the banks are going to start to pass this on (although a number have not made comment or shown any price changes yet) the Reserve Bank is also conducting a further review to see if the Banks should hold even more capital on mortgage lending which could push interest rates up even further.....

 

Last November the Reserve Bank increased the amount of capital Banks needed to hold when lending on investment properties which we comments on in a previous blog HERE. As per our comments then the Banks have been absorbing so far the pricing difference with it being such a competitive market that they are not wanting to lose market share. In the last couple of weeks we.....

2016 is already looking to be an interesting year in the NZ property markets with some questioning whether the Auckland market has finally peaked and whether it is now set for a major correction. In my opinion with the craziness and how out of hand the price increases were around the middle of last year it was always likely to settle down for a bit however.....

 

This is going to continue to be an interesting but volatile discussion in 2016 with many indicators both at home and overseas suggesting that there could be more downward movement.....

While there is still a lot of global volatility many things seem to be staying the same at the moment. The Auckland housing market is still going ballistic, with what seems ever increasing net migration, the council seems to be getting further and further behind in regards to issues consents to fix the supply side of the equation and the Bank war continues.....

While many of us have enjoyed what weather wise has been a ripper of an NZ summer so far many are still spending their times checking out open homes as activity levels leading up to Christmas and the last couple of weeks have been exceptionally busy. This may be primarily with us dealing in the investor market as the statistics provided by the Reserve Bank indicate that.....