Investors again making their mark in the mortgage market
First home buyers who piled into the housing market at the end of last year and bought so they didn’t have to compete with the coming surge of investors, were on the right track.
Friday, February 28th 2025, 8:56AM
by Sally Lindsay
First-home buyers who piled into the housing market at the end of last year and bought so they didn’t have to compete with the coming surge of investors were on the right track.
The latest Reserve Bank mortgage data shows in January investors took out their biggest share of new mortgages in nearly four years. The RBNZ had temporarily removed LVR restrictions for investors at that time.
Of the $5.1 billion taken out in new mortgages, 22.5% went to investors in January. A year ago, their share stood at just 17.8%.
Investors started overtaking first home buyers again in about August last year and annual growth in new mortgages taken out by them was up 90% to $1.153 billion, compared to the $607 million borrowed in January last year.
In comparison, first home buyers share of new mortgages at 20.2%, while slightly up from 19.9% in December, was a drop from 24.1% in January last year.
The total value of annual growth in new first home buyer mortgages was up 26.1% to $1,036 billion, up from $822 million borrowed in the same month last year, but well down on the $1.563 billion taken out in October last year.
Borrowers took out a total of $5.1 billion in mortgages during January, down 36.8% from $8.1 billion in December, but up by 50.3% when compared to January last year. The amount borrowed then was $3.413 billion.
More than 14,000 mortgages were signed in January, down 29.9 per cent from 20,147 in December, but many people take a holiday during the Christmas break and January.
While this figure was down, it was an increase of 36.7% from 10,334 new mortgages taken out in January last year.
The average new loan value across all mortgages dropped to $363,319, down 9.8% from $402,677 in December, it was however a 10% rise from $330,307 at the same time last year.
The average loan value for top ups dropped by 19.8% per cent from December and the average value for changes in loan provider declined by 3.3% per cent over the same period.
New mortgages for a change in loan provider increased by 60.4% compared to January last year, but a monthly drop of 43.4% from December was recorded.
The number of new mortgages for property purchases rose by 37.4% and that of top ups increased by 31.7% when compared to January last year.
The share of the value of new mortgages for property purchases increased to 63.9%, up from 60.6% in December, changes in loan provider dropped 22%, down from 25.4% the previous month and the share for top ups also dropped marginally to 11%, down from 11.1% in December.
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