LVR limits could return: RBNZ
Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr is monitoring the buoyant housing market and may reimpose LVR restrictions.
Wednesday, October 21st 2020, 12:15PM 
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At the INFINZ conference, Orr said the central bank was "looking at" the market, ready to act if necessary if the housing market becomes overheated.
The Reserve Bank scrapped LVR ratios in May for one year, but could change reintroduce the rules if the market gets out of control.
It comes as investor and first home buyer lending at high LVR rose significantly in recent months.
Investors have enjoyed an increase in home loans above 70% LVR.
According to the Reserve Bank, high LVR new mortgage commitments to investors saw an increase of 10.3% in August.
Newsroom reports the RBNZ governor said he would act if the bank sees house prices being driven higher by very high leverage loans and by investors rather than households.
The RBNZ first introduced LVR restrictions in October 2013 to cool the housing market.
Orr said the housing market risks reverting back to higher rates of LVR lending.
The bank has tools “and we would be prepared to use those tools,” he said.
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Newsflash Governor Orr. The housing market is already overheated and this is thanks in part to your decision in April to remove the LVR restrictions for investors. This decision has since seen most lenders relaxing their deposit requirements for property investors. Now we have ASB stating today a 134% increase in high LVR lending (above 70%) in the three months to August, compared with the same period last year. Owner-occupiers meanwhile are getting squeezed out of properties that should be going into their hands. It's like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion.
At this point I think a class of year 13 economics students at Wellington College could probably do a better job than the so called experts currently employed up at 2 The Terrace, Wellington. The certainly couldn't do any worse!