By Bernard Hickey
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has been collecting more granular data about what new mortgages are being used for, including more detail about whether the mortgages are for first home buyers, owner occupiers or rental investors.
The Reserve Bank has been asking for much more detailed data from banks about the loan to value ratio levels of mortgages as part of its high LVR speed limit and its new macro-prudential controls.
Officials expect to publish a more detailed breakdown of the mortgage flow data later this year. The Reserve Bank has also asked banks to work out whether mortgages are being used to fund their businesses.
Data on exactly how much lending is for first home buyers, owner occupiers and rental property investors has not been available until now, unlike in Australia where the Australian Bureau of Statistics produces housing finance figures monthly.
Quotable Value began producing figures on the portion of buyers who were first home buyers in November, but the data is based on property records rather than mortgage records.
The Reserve Bank introduced its 'speed limit' on high Loan to Value Ratio (LVR) mortgages on October 1 and has been reporting the amount and portion of new mortgages that have LVRs over 80% and are not covered by exemptions. Here is the data table
The Reserve Bank imposed a 10% limit on high LVR mortgages as a percentage of total new mortgages issued on average over a six month period. High LVR mortgages had dropped to 4.2% in the fifth month of the rules from 11.7% in October.
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