Interest payments on mortgages soar

The Reserve Bank’s latest Residential Mortgage Loan Reconciliation shows borrowers will, in this calendar year, probably pay their banks more than $17 billion in mortgage interest.

In the Sept quarter they paid $4,627b – a new record – and a big rise from $3,549b in the Dec quarter last year and  double the $2,323b in the Sept quarter,b2021. The last big quarter for interest payments was in June – $4,219b. 

The amount borrowers owed at the end of the Sept quarter was $348,707b. Just over $9b in loans was fully repaid, with excess payments of just over $4b. The value of drawdowns of new mortgage lending was the same as last quarter at $17.9b.

The RBNZ’s Sept statistics show $5.2b of new mortgages were lent, down 10.2% from $5.8b in Aug, but a rise of 1.2% annually. It is the second month of an annual increase since Aug 2021.