A review of things you need to know before you go home on Tuesday; houses more unaffordable, lower farm sales, more cows, fewer job losses, no surplus yet, Russia in crisis

Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
NZCU Baywide cut rates -10 bps for terms 6 months to 2 years.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
NZCU Baywide cut rates -10 to -20 bps for terms 15 months to 2 years.

HOUSES MUCH MORE UNAFFORDABLE
Housing became much less affordable in November as prices rose sharply, according to Roost Home Loan Affordability report. Interest rates are low and falling, incomes are rising modestly, but the jump in house prices is making housing more unaffordable for more people.

FARM SALES LOWER
The 135 farms that were sold in November were -23% less than the same month a year ago. That included 37 dairy farms, but while prices held in the North Island, the price/ha in the South Island fell away quite noticeably.

PEAK COW?
Just as the dairy prices start falling, Statistics NZ today reported that the number of dairy cattle in New Zealand continued to rise, to reach 6.7 million at the end of June.

TARGET TO BE MISSED?
Today's Economic and Fiscal Update by Treasury suggests that the Government’s hoped-for 2015 surplus target is looking increasingly unachievable, with downgrades to the expected tax take leading to a $527 deficit forecast.

FEW JOB LOSSES
Unless there are some major announcements in the next week, it is clear that the number of reported job losses in 2014 will be less than half those for 2013. (We always appreciate reader's reports to keep this tally up-to-date.) We have been tracking this stuff since 2008 and the 2014 data is the lowest we have yet recorded.

GIVING UP ON GEOTHERMAL
Mighty River Power today announced they will exit their geothermal development interests in Chile and Germany, while keeping its stake in operating US interests. The company is moving away from the declining sector of generation to focus is on incremental consumer-focused growth options, including smart meter deployment and data services.

FACTORY PULLBACK
The flash HSBC China PMI for December reports further weakness, in fact contraction in their mid-sized manufacturing sector. That PMI reading today is 49.5, down from 50 last month, and lower than the expected 49.8.

PSST ... WANT SOME RUBLES?
Staying offshore, there has been a spectacular rise in interest rates in Russia earlier today. Their Central Bank raised rates last week to 10.5%, but today they raised them again to 17%. They are trying to halt the flight from the ruble. Their intervention to support their currency has been a spectacular failure; they have spent more than US$80 bln of their foreign reserves so far for no noticeable impact. Today's sudden rate rise is a last-ditch effort.

WHOLESALE RATES
Swap rates rose by +1 bp across the board today but these are still low levels. The 90 day bank bill rate was unchanged at 3.66%.

NZ DOLLAR UNCHANGED
Check our real-time charts here. The NZ dollar is holding today. It is still at 77.4 USc. It's also still at 94.1 AUc, and the TWI is now at 78.

You can now see an animation of this chart. Click on it, or click here.