The latest monthly mortgage figures are showing a 4% seasonally-adjusted rise, according to the Reserve Bank (RBNZ).
In February 2024 there was $4.915 billion worth of mortgage money advanced, which is just over $1.5 billion more than was advanced in January. But of course January is traditionally the low, on-holiday point.
It’s more significant that after the RBNZ has taken seasonal patterns out of the equation it says that the mortgage advances were up 4%.
What we can very legitimately do is compare the latest month’s figures with February of last year. And the latest figures are up a whopping 28% on the $3.836 billion reported for February 2023. But, yes, last February’s figures were indeed the smallest recorded for a February by the RBNZ since it started publishing this data in 2014.
However, notwithstanding that, the latest February figures do perhaps hint at the return of a more ‘normal’ market – albeit one that is certainly not on fire.
On interesting point of note throughout the big slump we’ve seen since 2021 is the continuing enthusiasm of the first home buyer grouping.
The FHBs have continued racking up borrowing amounts numerically not far shy of the levels they were borrowing during the bull run, while increasing their monthly share of the total amount borrowed – as that amount withered.
The FHB’s hit their all-time high (since this data series started) of 25.2% share of the mortgage money for December 2023.
It’s looking increasingly as though they could have found their ceiling though.
The FHB grouping saw its share of the overall borrowing in January 2024 slip down to 24.1% – and it’s fallen again in the latest month.
In February the FHB’s did crack the billion dollar mark for the 11th time in the past 12 months, with $1.109 billion.
However, their total share of the spoils was down again at 22.6%. Maybe their are waiting and hoping for some mortgage interest rate relief later this year. The financial markets of course reckon that the RBNZ will start cutting the Official Cash Rate – presently at 5.5% – in August. But there’s a lot of water to go over a lot of bridges first.
What then of the investors, who know have a more investor-friendly Government in place?
Well, if they are getting more interested, they are not showing it yet.
Investors borrowed $851 million in February 2024 and that made up 17.3% of the total mortgage money advanced – which was down on the 17.8% this grouping borrowed in January 2024.
The share of new mortgage commitments to other owner occupiers increased to 58.6% in February from 56.6% in January.
The RBNZ reports that there were 14,391 new mortgage commitments in February, which was up 39.3% from 10,334 in January and up 25.5 per cent from the 11,468 commitments in February a year go.
In February 2024 the average new loan value across all borrower types increased to $341,533, up 3.4% from $330,269 in January 2024.