Borrowers shying away from too much debt

The monthly share of new mortgage commitments with a DTI of above five has now dropped for 13 months in a row.

Relative to their incomes, borrowers with a DTI of above five (borrowings of five times their income) drifted from 38.8% in December down to 34.4% at the end of March - the lowest since 2017 when the RBNZ started collecting this data.

It was also a big drop from the high of 60.2% in November 2021, when house prices hit their peak during the pandemic-induced madness of record low interest rates.

Since then, the monthly share of DTI above 5 lending has dropped sharply. House prices have declined by about 17-18% across the board, but mortgage interest rates have spiralled higher.