By far the biggest slice of lending is on two-year fixed interest rates at $1.8 billion, after the flurry of floating and short-term fixing while rates were dropping last year. The next most popular for borrowers are one-year fixed rates at $1.25 billion.
Data from the central bank’s series on new lending fully secured by residential mortgage shows the total of new residential lending on fixed interest rate terms increased to 82% ($4.91 billion) in April, up 1.2% from March, while the total on floating interest rates was $1.01 billion, down from $1.1 billion in March.
New owner-occupier lending dropped slightly to $5.9 billion from $6.1 billion in March, and lending on all terms apart from 18 months, two years and four years declined.
The share of owner occupier loans on floating dropped to 17.1% from 18.1% in March. However, short-term fixed rates represented 42.9% of new lending in April.
Borrowers showed a clear preference for two-year fixed rates, with the share of new lending by owner-occupiers rising to 30.7% ($1.81 billion) from 29.1% ($1.77 billion) in March.
One-year fixed mortgage lending for owner occupiers dropped to a 21.2% ($1.25 billion) share from 22.4% ($1.37 billion) in March.
New lending on an 18-month fixed term accounted for 8.9% ($527 million) of all new lending, up from 7% ($429 million) in March.
Investors still on the sidelines
New residential investor mortgage is also declining, with lending dropping to $2.2 billion in April from $2.4 billion in March.
In April 83.9% of investor new lending was on floating or at fixed rates of two years.
Investors preference was for two-year fixed terms, which accounted for 30.8% ($682 million) of new lending, up 2% from 28.8%.
The share of investor lending also increased for one-year ($476 million) and 18-month terms ($180 million).
Three-year fixed terms dropped to a 13.5% ($299 million) share, down 0.9% from 14.4% ($344 million) in March.
Higher rates
While all new lending secured by residential mortgage flagged by nearly $1 billion in April, it was still up by $2 billion on the same month last year.
The Reserve Bank’s data shows $14.2 billion of new lending during April, down 6.4% from $15.1 billion in March. Compared to April last year, total new lending was up 15.5% from $12.3 billion.
It expects mortgage holders to be refixing onto higher interest rates on average by March next year.
While the central bank held the OCR at 2.5% at last month’s review and Monetary Policy Statement meeting, most economists have priced in a rise from next month and possibly three by the end of the year.
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