First home buyer facts and interest rate forecasts

Lately I have been seeing more and more first home buyers coming through the open homes which is great to see. For a while there, many first home buyers put off their plans to purchase after they were consistently being out bid at many auctions.

Westpac NZ's typical first home buyer is aged between 25 and 34, their average loan size is $330,000, their average deposit size is $120,000, only one in five have less than a 20% deposit, and 78% of them have a loan-to-value ratio of less than 80%. Only 22% of our first home buyers are from Auckland" says McLean

Westpac NZ CEO David McLean reported that ''We've seen rates of increase of 15 to 20% over the last five years. There's a general commentary and acceptance that with the growing supply that is now coming on stream that the market has significantly cooled off."

According to the Building and Construction Minister, Nick Smith, “Auckland was the city with the biggest problem with housing affordability but over the past six months house prices had remained ‘dead-pan flat.’”

It is likely that we will see at least one interest rate hike this year, so many people are fixing their loans at a 2 year rate. Here are the average bank two-year mortgage rate's — the most popular term, was 5.73%.

Westpac has a 5.19% standard two-year rate, and a 4.79% "special" available to borrowers with at least 20% equity.

ANZ, has just increased its standard two-year rate by six basis points to 5.35%. ANZ also has a "special" two-year rate of 4.85%, which has also been increased by six basis points.