More first home buyers are using their mortgage advisers as they race to buy a property expecting lower interest rates will bring more people into the market this year.

The RBNZ’s latest survey of expectations will give it some solace ahead of its OCR decision on Wednesday.

Consensus among the country’s main banks is the OCR will be cut to 3.75% on Wednesday but after that all eyes will be on the RBNZ’s Monetary Policy Statement outlining its forecast.

As potential new homeowners struggle with saving a decent deposit a mortgage adviser can put before a bank in a loan application, Squirrel Mortgages has taken a swipe at how much profit banks are making from savings accounts.

One of the possibilities of open banking includes the ability for borrowers to get pre-approval for a home loan in 10 minutes and to make instant low-cost payments.

A month is a long time in the home loan world.

Between November and December last year new mortgage lending switched swiftly from floating to six-month terms by borrowers taking out new loans.

Some financial advice providers are taking an overly conservative approach to meeting their regulatory obligations, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) says.

The question hovering on mortgage advisers’ lips is when they should start pointing clients to longer fixed interest terms on their mortgages.

Mortgage arrears are increasing – up 7% year on year in December, the latest Centrix data show.

Nearly a quarter of all mortgages loaned in December went to borrowers switching banks – an increase of 94.8% over a year.

Borrowers will save on average between $300 and $460 a month on their mortgage repayments when the OCR drops to 3.25% by the middle of the year.

As business confidence improves, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon wants the RBNZ to take more frequent OCR decisions.

The country’s outstanding mortgage book is the shortest it has been in 13 years.

Property investor mortgage borrowers are worried interest rates will rise this year, and this cycle of the market won’t result in firm house price increases.

While borrowers have flocked to floating to one year fixed term home loan rates over the past year in anticipation of interest rate cuts one mortgage broker urges his clients to think about the ramifications carefully.

Debate among economists is starting to emerge on how much the RBNZ will cut the OCR at its next review on 19 February.