Record migration resulting in more people than live in Palmerston North or New Plymouth moving to New Zealand, all needing a place to live at a time when house building has hit a slump and rents are rising is putting pressure on mortgage rates, especially in Auckland.

The downturn in New Zealand’s building sector is deepening, and a sharp decline in building is expected over the year ahead, just as migration reaches all-time highs.

Possible debt-to-income (DTI) ratios could be introduced by the RBNZ mid next year.

CoreLogic’s latest national House Price Index (HPI) shows the national downturn is officially over with a total peak to trough decline of about $138,000 or 13.2% from the record highs of late 2021.

The five biggest New Zealand banks are predicting mortgage defaults as a share of lending could rise to about 1% by early 2025.

Kiwis are now really feeling the pinch amid tight economic conditions and rising interest rates.

Highly-indebted households with large mortgages and little savings buffers face increasing risk of defaulting on their loans, the pre-release of the Reserve Bank’s November Financial Stability Report says.

BNZ chief economist Mike Jones has had a crack at number crunching the cost between building new and buying an existing home and says the $200,000 difference has never been wider.

With unemployment figures expected to increase at the latest data release on Wednesday, don’t expect the RBNZ to loosen OCR settings any time soon, says ASB.

Record high interest bills are hitting mortgage borrowers as rising and high interest rates bite.

The Commerce Commission has been urged to come up with an agreed model for how the New Zealand banking sector operates for its banking competition study.

Although a Christchurch landlord did not do a pre-tenancy methamphetamine test, he was still able to evict the tenant because a circular saw was used to cut through the front door which he had to replace with a brand-new door that subsequently tested positive for the drug.

The country’s banks are expecting a significant recovery in demand for mortgages over the next six months if interest deductibility is restored for investors buying rental properties.

National’s plans for unlocking the build-to-rent sector as an asset class can’t come soon enough for New Ground Capital, a pioneer of the new style of rental housing.

Household net worth fell by $33.5 billion in the June quarter, with more than half put down to declining property values, Stats NZ data show.

Regardless of politics, the property market’s recovery is still subdued.