MortgageWatch: Shorts down, longs up

Two key trends are happening in the home loan market this week; floating rates are actually sinking and some long-term rates are rising.

Friday, March 13th 2009, 6:19PM

The table below, from www.goodreturns.co.nz, shows the changes for the week.

The key points are that a number of the banks lowered their floating rates on the back of the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate on Thursday. The central bank cut the OCR 50 basis points and much of that has been passed on. While Westpac doesn’t feature in this week’s changes it moved earlier anticipating the OCR cut.

While these movements in short-term rates have been well-reported we continue to see longer term rates increase.

Currently the ASB Group (ASB Bank, Bank Direct, Sovereign and NZ Home Loans) continue to push up their long term rates.

Good Returns publisher Philip Macalister says that the bank may come under pressure from borrowers if this trend continues.

“ASB is leading this part of the market up, but its competitors don’t seem too keen to follow.”

Perhaps the one thing the market is waiting to see is what Kiwibank does. In recent months the bank has lead the way in producing the lowest rates, but this week it has been deadly silent on its plans post the OCR.

There are some indications it will lower its floating and six-month rate next week.

Outside of the changes to standard rates we had ANZ introduce a special three-month rate of 5.65%. Also BNZ withdrew its highly conditional six-month rate of 4.99%. As Good Returns reported earlier this rate was unusual in that it had conditions around it, including ones relating to how many other products a borrower had to buy from BNZ to get the rate.

Also new to the Good Returns rate table this week is the addition of Nelson Building Society.

Lender	Fl	6	1	18	2	3	4	5
ANZ	-50
National	-50
ASB	-50					10	15	10
BankDirect	-50					10		10
NZ Home Loans	-50					10		10
Sovereign	-50					10	15	10
TSB	-50
BNZ Std/Fly	-54
BNZ Global Plus	-54
BNZ TotalMoney	-24
BNZ Mort One	-29