by Miriam Bell
The Reserve Bank has just released its residential mortgage lending statistics for January 2016 and it seems the year got off to a slow start.
Total new bank lending came to $4.1 billion in January, according to the RBNZ data.
This was significantly down on December’s total lending of $6 billion – which, in itself, was down on November’s $6.4 billion.
January’s new bank lending total was the lowest since the government’s tax measures and the RBNZ’s latest loan-to-value (LVR) ratios came into force on October 1 and November 1 last year respectively.
This could indicate that the new measures are having an impact on investor borrowing behaviour.
However, lending to all borrower groups – not just investors - was down in January, as it was in December.
This, in turn, could either reflect the slowdown of the Auckland housing market in recent months, or it could stem from the traditional January quiet period.
Of the new lending in January, investors accounted for $1.3 billion. This was significantly down on the December figure of $2 billion.
The biggest group of borrowers was other owner-occupiers, who accounted for $2.2 billion of new lending in January. This was down from $3.2 billion in December.
First home buyers accounted for $484 million of new lending, in January. This was down from the $699 million they borrowed in December.
Investors’ share of higher than 80% LVR lending dropped to $26 million in January, from $42 million in December.
Once again, the investors’ figure was significantly less than the amount of higher than 80% LVR lending that went to first home buyers ($156 million) and other owner-occupiers ($160 million).
In the RBNZ data, total lending to investors is also divided into two categories: higher than 70% LVR lending and less than 70% LVR lending.
Higher than 70% LVR lending to investors came to $438 million. This was significantly down on the $687 million loaned in December.
The bulk of lending to investors was less than 70% LVR lending. In January, it came to $956 million. This was down on December’s lending of $1.3 billion.
The RBNZ data also shows that banks have continued to stay within their 10% threshold for lending to borrowers with less than 20% equity.
Just 8.3% of new loans in January fitted into that category. This was down from 8.4% in December.
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