A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; LVR rules slow investors, Heartland ups Harmoney stake, Helen Kelly commemorated, expectations high for South Auckland property development

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
AMP has increased its 1 and 2 year home loan rates from 4.24% to 4.29%. It has also upped its 3 year rate from 4.34% to 4.39%.

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
Heartland Bank has increased its 3 month deposit rate by +35 bps to 3.60%, and its 9 month rate by +40 bps to 3.70%. It has cut its two year rate by -25 bps to 3.40%.

LVR RULES DAMPEN INVESTORS' SPIRITS
New loan-to-value restrictions are forcing property investors to hit the brakes, according to the 2016 ANZ Property Investment Survey released this afternoon. Nearly a third of investors surveyed said lending restrictions had significantly impacted their strategy over the past year, with nearly half of these (14% of all investors) saying they had not bought a property they would otherwise have bought. Investors' top three areas of concern included damage to property, government regulations (particularly LVR rules) and tenants defaulting on payments. 

HEARTLAND TIPS ANOTHER $4 MLN INTO HARMONEY
Heartland Bank has sunk another $4 million into under the pump peer-to-peer lender Harmoney, upping its stake to about 13.19%. The sharemarket listed Heartland has paid about 50.85 cents for nearly 7.9 million Harmoney shares, according to a Companies Office filing. Heartland previously had a 9.41% stake. Harmoney is facing legal action from the Commerce Commission on two fronts, and this week had ACT Party leader David Seymour lobbying on its behalf in Parliament.

DETAILS OF NEW SOUTH AUCKLAND HOUSING DEVELOPMENT REVEALED
Work is expected to get underway soon on a new residential neighbourhood, Market Cover, which will consist of 1,200 homes on the edge of the Manukau Harbour. The first stage of the development in Favona and next to Mangere Bridge will focus on the building of 38 two storey terrace homes and 196 apartments. Around 20% of the homes are expected to sell for under $600,000, and 70% under $750,000. Market Cove’s general manager says that with earlier plans for the development refreshed, the development is no longer reliant on bank funding to proceed. 

MAKING THE MOST OF UNLIMITED DATA
Broadband users in New Zealand used 70% more data in June this year, than we did in June last year, according to Statistics New Zealand. Almost half of all broadband connections had unlimited data plans at 30 June 2016, whereas only around a third of plans were unlimited last year.

Stats NZ says: “Residential broadband connections in New Zealand used an average of 88 gigabytes each during the month of June 2016. That’s equivalent to 85 hours of video or TV streaming. Kiwis are really making the most of their unlimited data plans, considering that half of the broadband connections in June 2016 had no data cap.”

ROCKET MAN
The founder of Rocket Lab, Peter Beck, has been crowned this year's EY New Zealand Entrepreneur of Year. Beck founded the Auckland-based company in 2007 and is planning to launch the company's Electron rocket from Mahia Peninsula later this year, in what will be the first commercial space launch from New Zealand. Buck's business model is to reduce launch costs by upping the frequency of flights to space. "If we can succeed in commercialising space then I’ve done my bit for humanity," he says.

TRIBUTES FLOW
Helen Kelly is being honoured for the work she's done advocating for the fair treatment of people. The former head of the Council of Trade Unions has died of lung cancer at the age of 52. Kelly was involved in teachers' unions, advocated for women's pay and employment equity, pushed for corporate responsibility to be taken for the 2010 Pike River mining tragedy, campaigned for health and safety improvements in the forestry industry, and became an active campaigner for medical marijuana as her health declined. Here's a fantastic piece Rebecca Macfie wrote about Kelly last year.

ROADING PROGRESS
Funding has been approved for the construction of Queenstown’s $21.8 million Eastern Access Road. The road is expected to relieve congestion, bypassing the airport and connecting Remarkables Park to Frankton-Ladies Mile. Transport Minister Simon Bridges has today also turned the sod on the seventh and final section of the Government’s $2.1 billion Waikato Expressway. The $115 million Longswamp Section involves widening and upgrading State Highway 1 between Hampton Downs and the Rangiriri Interchange, with improved local road connections and a new local road overbridge.

WHOLESALE RATES FALL
The fall in US yields overnight has filtered through to the local market with government bond yields coming off between 1 and 4 basis points along the curve. The largest falls have been in the longer dated bonds. Similarly, longer dated swap yields have been lower, but only fractionally. There has been little to no movement in the swap market today. The 90 day bank bill rate is steady at 2.14%.

NZ DOLLAR LOSSES REVERSED
After several days of being sold off, the NZ dollar has reversed some of its losses and trended up against all the majors. The turn-around has been driven by strong domestic data, weaker Chinese data and some USD selling. While the opening of the Asian session did see some NZD selling, this has been quickly mopped up, with the NZD steadily climbing to US71.2c. Check our real-time charts here.

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