Longer mortgage terms favoured as OCR drops

After going short for much of the year, investors, in particular, favoured longer-terms with 44% of their $2.4 billion in lending on one-year fixed terms.

That was up 10% on the previous month, when they had backed floating rates. However, overall lending to investors dropped from $2.5 billion to $2.4 billion, the data from the

RBNZ’s series new lending fully secured by residential mortgages shows.

Lending to owner-occupiers on one-year terms also rose in June by 5.6% from 33.4% to 39%. Of the $6.1 billion they borrowed on mortgages, $2.395 was on the longer term.