Inflation angst for mortgage holders

• Published date: 18 April 2024
• Author: Kelvin Davidson Kelvin Davidson is chief economist at property insights firm CoreLogic
• Publication title: Te Awamutu Courier

1. All eyes on inflation This week, the key release is clearly the Q1 consumers price index (CPI) from Stats NZ. In its latest projections, the RBNZ expects a 0.4 per cent quarterly rise in the CPI, with the annual figure slowing from 4.7 per cent in Q4 last year to 3.8 per cent, which would be the first time the rate was below 4 per cent since mid-2021. If the actual result is roughly in line with those projections, don’t expect too much to change in terms of market expectations or mortgage rates

As usual, though, keep an eye on the tradable/imported vs non-tradable/domestic split. We know local inflation pressures such as rents and council rates remain problematic, so any surprises on the imported front right now (eg. higher petrol prices) will tend to hold up the overall index.

2. Short and sharp – no OCR falls yet In what must have been the shortest statement the Reserve Bank has ever released when it comes to explaining its rationale, the Official Cash Rate (OCR) was left unchanged at 5.5 per cent last week.

The decision surprised nobody and it was very much a “nothing to see here” call. The Reserve Bank essentially stuck to the script it’s been reading from for some time now: inflation is dropping, but it remains too high, which means the OCR will stay high.

Nothing changes in terms of the housing market outlook – sales and prices should continue to rise in a slow/patchy fashion, restrained by elevated mortgage rates for at least the next few months.

3. Borrowers think rates have peaked Speaking of short, last week’s figures from the Reserve Bank showed that a dominant 56 per cent of new loans (house purchase, bank switches, and top-ups) in February were fixed for only one year or less.

That’s a sharp jump from just three months ago, and shows that people are now pretty certain mortgage rates have peaked and that the next moves (whenever they happen) will be down – hence people don’t...