A review of things you need to know before you go home on Monday; Retirement villages boost building consents, renters increase as home owners decline, car sales strong & more

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There are no home loan rates to report today.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Asset Finance has cut its 18 month and 4 year term deposit rates, and raised its five year offer. We have seen plenty of changes for other institutions over the summer break. Basically, savings and term deposit rates are falling and are now very low.

BUILDING CONSENTS UP STRONGLY
Today we got the November residential building consent data and they rose strongly although they still came up short in Auckland. There were 526 new houses consented in Auckland in November, up from 486 in October, and the first time since August 2005 that more than 500 houses have been consented. Retirement units helped boost Auckland’s totals with an +81% increase in the three months to November, with townhouses in the region also up +14%. However, apartment consents are down -10% in the three months to November. 

NON-RESIDENTIAL CONSENTS STRONG IN AUCKLAND
The value of non-residential consents issued in November were up +25% from the same month in 2014 to $530 mln. Auckland accounted for most of this rise, more than doubling to $244 mln in November 2015. The value of consents in Canterbury was also up by +$39m from a year earlier, while consent levels around the rest of the country eased back. Much of the Auckland activity is focused around Manukau.

CAR NATION
Low petrol prices, high consumer confidence, and strong migration have all combined to drive car sales to new records. The December 2015 data out today shows sales of new cars hit more than 95,000 for the year, the highest since 1984. Even more people are buying used imports. This total reached 143,000 in 2015 and that is a nine year high. This means there are now almost 3.5 mln cars on our roads at an average age of 14 years (the average NZ car is a 2001 Toyota Camry).

NOT PAYING MORE ...
The December data for rents was out today from MBIE's Tenancy Services division and that shows a market that is still absorbing the rises we saw early in 2015. Most rents have drifted lower since then, except perhaps for Auckland 2 bedroom flats.

... BUT MANY MORE RENTERS
At the same time, StatisticsNZ also released data showing that 32.7% of households rent, compared with 32.3% a year ago. Ten years ago the number was 28.9%; twenty years ago it was 25.3%. The flip side is that home ownership rates are falling. (Consistently, about 4% of households live in free accommodation - not renting, not owning.) For the first time ever, the total number of households in the country has exceeded 1.8 mln. In ten years, owner-occupied houses have grown about +5% while rented houses have grown +25%.

WHOLESALE RATES SLUMP
Swap rates have fallen sharply today, down -4 and -5 bps across the curve. This follows the sharp declines we saw on Wall Street at the end of last week, and there is probably some catch-up involved. Remarkably, the 10 year swap is down -20 bps since the beginning of the year. The five year is down a similar amount and the two year is down -12 bps. Basically, we are back to where we were at the beginning of December. The 90 day bank bill rate however is up +1 bp to 2.74% and basically that is the market saying it doesn't see any change at the next OCR review on January 28, 2016.

NZ DOLLAR HOLDS
The Kiwi is holding at US65.3c. It is slipping against the Aussie at AU93.8c. Against the euro it is at 59.8 euro cents. These are similar levels to where we started the day. The TWI-5 is still at 70.8. Check our real-time charts here.

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