How much will the OCR rise this year?
Of those polled by mortgagerates.co.nz, all said they expected a 25bps increase with the next monetary policy statement.
The economists pointed to signs of strengthening, such as increasing construction activity, strong export prices, higher household spending and strong migration inflows coupled with a lack of supply keeping the pressure on the housing market.
Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler strongly signalled in January that a hike was coming – economists said at the time he was likely waiting for the March announcement because there would be more opportunity to explain his actions.
BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander said he expected the rate to have risen to 4.5% by the end of next year. “This Thursday… the Reserve Bank will review their official cash rate and the strong expectation of us all is that they will start to take away the extraordinarily low rate of 2.5% put in place to combat the global financial crisis and its lingering after-effects.”
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