Mortgage lending reaches all-time high in big bank cash backs frenzy
As expected, billions of mortgage dollars washed around the major banks at the end of last year as homeowners chased the big cash backs on offer.
Friday, January 30th 2026, 2:19PM
by Sally Lindsay
The latest Reserve Bank data for the residential mortgage lending by purpose data series shows changes in loan provider spiked up to $5.78 billion, or 41.1% of the total $14 billion lent in December – record numbers in the series. It was an increase of 169.2% compared to December 2024.
Banks had offered a 1.5% cash back for new mortgages and mortgage advisers reported a flurry of activity from mortgage holders due to refix in December and others breaking their existing terms to get the offers of up to $30,000.
Mortgage holders changing their loan provider in large part drove the total lending figure of $14 billion – an all-time high. The last time it came anywhere near this was at its March 2021 pandemic peak when the total reached $10.5 billion.
Also at a record high was the average size of loans at $718,000.
The total value of new mortgages rose by 73.4% compared to December 2024.
It was other owner-occupiers who were at the core of the 72.1% monthly increase in total new mortgages.
This was driven by a monthly increase of $3.7bn (182.1%) in changing loan provider from November – the biggest in the series. The previous highest increase being 112.3% in March 2023.
Annual growth in the total value of new mortgages increased for the three main borrower categories – owner occupiers, up 85.3%, investors, up 80.3% and first home buyers, up 33.4%.
The share of new mortgages to FHBs dropped to 15.3% in December, down from 20% the previous month. This is an annual decline from 19.9% in December 2024.
The unusually large share of new mortgages in the change to loan provider data explains the drop in the FHB share, the RBNZ says.
New mortgages to Investors rose to 21.7%, up from 20.8% in November. There was an increase in comparison to the previous year, where the share to Investors was 20.8%.
The share of new mortgages other owner occupiers increased to 62.3%, up from 57.9% in November. The previous year the share was 58.3%.
The other owner occupier’ category captures the majority of new morrtgages due to switching loan providers.
There were 28,705 new mortgages taken out, up 35.4% from 21,196 the previous month.
Compared to December 2024, the number rose by 42.5% from 20,147.
The number of new mortgages for property purchases increased by 25.5% and that of top ups rose by 9.9% when compared to the previous year.
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