Mortgage Interest Market Monthly Summary

Home Loans Today Interest Rates Up date for September 2014

Home Loans Today

Interest rate up date for September 2014

Direction Policies for First Home Buyers
With the election looming there has been a lot of commentary on support for first home buyers.  This is developing as a major election issue as the parties strive to capture the younger voter and address the passion we have for home ownership.
National
National says that it backs young Kiwis who are disciplined, save up and want to put a deposit down on a house.  National values home ownership because it provides stability for families, strength for communities and security in retirement.  Their policy focuses on changes to KiwiSaver.  The First Home Deposit Subsidy would be replaced with a KiwiSaver HomeStart Grant. This is a similar scheme, but has higher house price limits, and doubles the support for people who are buying or building a brand new home.
National will allow people to withdraw more money from their KiwiSaver account to use as a deposit on their first home. First home buyers will be allowed to withdraw the Government’s annual contribution to their account – the member tax credit of up to $521 a year – as well as their own, and their employer’s, contributions.
Finally, more people will be able to get Welcome Home Loans, which means they require only a 10 per cent deposit to get a government-guaranteed loan. This will be achieved by making the Welcome Home Loan house price limits the same as those for the new KiwiSaver HomeStart Grant.

The Current Market
With the approach of the general election the housing market has adopted a wait and see approach. Potential buyers want to have certainty before committing themselves.
Home values in Auckland, Christchurch and Tauranga are still increasing but at a slower rate than this time last year.  The Auckland region as a whole saw residential property values increase by 1.8% over the past three months. Residential property values in Hamilton City have decreased slightly by 0.2% and over the same period residential property values in the Wellington Region still showed a slight downward trend down 0.5%.

Residential property values in Christchurch City have increased 1.1% over the past three months and in Dunedin City they have decreased slightly by 0.4% over the same period