With weekly home loan approval amounts this May towering above the previous four years, you would wonder what may lie ahead for house prices. We have seen further interest for buying outside of Auckland, with annual median price increases of approx 20% in Hamilton and Tauranga.
Auckland is still a different beast boasting population of almost 1.5 million, more than 3 times the size of the 2nd biggest being Wellington(with approx 400,000).
The autumn breeze has taken a little steam out of the weekly pre-approval volume it would seem. Perhaps the whisper of the debt to income ratio cooled down the long summer heat.
One of the major banks has mentioned that investment property loans will attract a slightly higher interest rate. We are yet to see some pricing difference but there maybe something in the cards over the next few months. My slightly educated guess is the difference if it does come in might be in the .1% or .2% – so quite small.
