Mortgage borrowing hits a new high

Borrowers signed up for $8.5 billion in new mortgages last month – up 45.2% from $5.8 billion in February and up 40.7% from $6.035 billion March last year, the latest Reserve Bank data show.

In March 2023 mortgage borrowers took out a smidgeon more at $6.036 billion.

A large chunk of the new mortgages were borrowers switching banks. Those numbers rose by 52.5% in a month and nearly 63% compared to March last year.

The share of the value of these new mortgages increased to 24.8% per cent last month, up from 24.4% in February. However, the average value of a change in loan provider mortgage fell by 3.2% over the month.