Updated with comment from Fitch about misrepresenting the New Zealand flag.
International credit rating agency Fitch Ratings expects annual New Zealand house price growth to moderate to 2.5% this year.
In its Global Housing and Mortgage Outlook report for 2015, Fitch said a number of factors would reduce house price growth as the year progressed.
"Fitch expects that the rate of house price growth will moderate to around 2.5% as the Official Cash Rate is expected to increase to 3.75% in 2015," the report said.
"Growth rates in Auckland and Christchurch will also continue to slow with the Housing Accord fast tracking housing developments in Auckland, and the gradual replacement of severely earthquake damaged homes in Christchurch reducing the housing supply shortage.
"The temporary LTV [loan to valuation ratio] restrictions are expected to be lifted once housing market pressure has fallen."
Fitch said it expected mortgage interest rates to rise to between 7% and 8%, which it said was in line with the long-term average.
Although there was likely to be ongoing affordability issues in Auckland and Christchurch, where house price gains had been strongest, Fitch said it expected the number of impaired loans to rise only marginally, to around 0.7% this year and 0.8% next year.
However Fitch may not understand the New Zealand market quite as well as the report suggests.
Within the report, Fitch has included the national flags of each of the 22 countries it has reported on, apart from New Zealand's.
Instead of our national flag with its Southern Cross on a blue background, Fitch has used the flag featuring a silver fern on a black background which is often waved at sporting events.
Fitch Australia associate director media & communications Iselle Gonzalez, said the substitution was deliberate, "to ensure there was no confusion with the Australian flag."
So perhaps in its next report Fitch will replace the Australian flag with something else, perhaps an image of kangaroo or a can of Fosters, to ensure there's no confusion with the New Zealand flag.
5 Comments
I disagree with this report.
As we are nearing the end of the economic cycle in the 3/4 of 2015, globally you will see deflation take hold and will last for a period of about five years.
Commodity prices have topped out and will collapse, this will cause soveriegn defaults in emerging markets.You are already seeing this in oil & copper.
Big money is already on the run and when that becomes a stampede and everyone is looking for the exits, capital will flee for safety into US bonds which will cause the USD $ to rise. Soon they will discover the bonds are in a bubble which will cause money to flee into equities so the Dow & S&P could go a lot higher. Remember this will be a soveriegn issue not a private issue.
Because of all the cheap dough the FED has been printing since 2008/9 there is about 5 trillion out of the US in the form of loans so when the dollar rises the interest they are paying will not be looking so cheap.
I now live in the UK and their has been strange market activity for the last year or so. The average house price in London is £514.000 yet the average worker earns £35k; there is an absolute disconnect in the fundamentals. This is being caused because LaGuard has been vocal about conviscating Euro citizens money from their accounts to pay down Govt debt in the Euro area. Russians are buying anything from housing to cars since Putin has gone crazy and France's Hollande has chased any high earners from France that is subject to the 75% tax rates.
Nothing will be safe, Govt around the world are short of cash and they will steal your pension, will use bank bail ins. Govt are destroying capitalism. It ended with Too Big To Fail.
The coming recession will be more severe than 2008 and will be longer, this all feeds into the chances of wars and separatists movements. The Euro will fail.
Looks like no one has read how Rome collapsed. Good luck everyone.
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