“Talking to quite a few people in the industry, most feel the same – why stay in the market for the past couple of years when it was particularly hard and then up and leave when it is near the point of turning.”

After undertaking “a comprehensive review” of the New Zealand mortgage market, Resimac stopped taking new home loan applications from 1 July.

Pedersen, who runs his own company, Kris Pedersen Mortgages, says all of the big non-bank lenders have been quiet lately, but most will have the perception the sector is about to come out of the doldrums, particularly after yesterday’s more dovish Reserve Bank outlook on OCR and interest rate cuts.

He says while non-bank funders struggle to find competitive fixed rates, they are quite competitive in the floating rate market.

“Obviously in the past couple of years when interest rates have been ramping up, people want a better fixed rate.

“On the flip side, if there are non-bank floating rates, what we are going to see in the next couple of years is people maybe a bit more happy to use a floating rate. If rates are going down they can ride the rates down.”

Resimac was known for its specialist investor product and Pedersen says it was starting to become very useful.

“I think their time to leave the market was quite unusual, just when we definitely started to see increased demand and activity in the non-bank space.”