More borrowers take out ever bigger mortgages

Credit bureau Centrix April data shows higher value lending is growing at the top end as the number of borrowers with a seven figure mortgage has ballooned.

The number of borrowers with mortgages of more than $1 million has risen 15% year-on-year, with more than 134,000 homeowners now in this category following a plateau during the softer property market of 2023–2024. Joint borrowers who own a house together could be counted twice.

At the end of 2019, nearly 51,000 borrowers had a mortgage of more than $1 million. That number had lifted to 100,000 by 2022 and is rising rapidly.

Even if the number of house sales falls, the number of mortgages in the top range doesn’t, although a 30-year mortgage of that size means repayments of more than $5,700 a month at an interest rate of 5.62%. For a $2 million mortgage repayments are $11,500 a month on the same terms.