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A review of things you need to know before you go home on Wednesday; BNZ hikes mortgage rates including floating, UDC and BNZ up TD rates, QV sees investor retreat, car sales zoom, UDC sold, job ads strong

A review of things you need to know before you go home on Wednesday; BNZ hikes mortgage rates including floating, UDC and BNZ up TD rates, QV sees investor retreat, car sales zoom, UDC sold, job ads strong

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

MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
BNZ has changed all its home loan rates today, pushing them up by between +3 and +30 bps. And that includes its floating rates which rose by +15 bps.

DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
BNZ raised its 9 and 18 month TD rates today by +5 and +10 bps respectively. They also raised TD rates for 3, 4 and 5 years by +30 bps or more. UDC also raised four selected TD rates today, all by just +5 bps

INVESTOR RETREAT?
QV is reporting that the average Auckland house price has inched back to $1.1 mln while the National average roses to $628,000 in the three months to December. They also note that uncertainty remains over whether LVR restrictions and looming interest rate rises will keep slowing house price growth.

THE PROFESSIONALS QUIT GOLD
The World Gold Council is reporting that total holdings in physically-backed gold exchange-traded products (ETPs) stood at 2,142.4 tonnes which was 7% lower from a month earlier. The majority of the decline was borne by funds in North America and Europe. Gold holdings in Asia also fell with China’s holding slackening further in December.

HOME EQUITY HIGH, CAR BUYING STRONG
In 2016, 146,939 new vehicles were sold in New Zealand, with 11,225 sold in December alone. In fact, that is the highest December total ever. The average December since 2000 is just 7,100, so 2016 is more than 150% above that. We will get the used import data in a day or so.

ABOUT FACE
After months of denial by ANZ-NZ, today the bank said it had agreed to sell UDC to a giant Chinese asset finance and leasing company HNA Group for NZ$660 mln. All UDC staff will keep their jobs and the existing lending programs will be maintained. This deal is subject to regulator approvals, but is unlikely to face any issues. Whether HNA really need local investors to fund their lending is not clear at this stage.

STRONG LOCAL LABOUR DEMAND
Job ads rose +1.6% in December to be +18.8% higher than a year ago. This is the strongest annual growth since late 2011. Job ads have now risen for 16 months in a row. Such a string of increases flags very strong demand for labour says surveyer ANZ. Although not as strong, something similar is going on in Australia.

ON THE WAY BACK
Each day brings higher values on the dairy futures trading platform for WMP. These indicators now show we should expect a +4% price rise - although that is not enough yet to make back the January 3rd -7.7% fall. The next auction however is not until January 18, 2017. Still, the rises in the futures pricing does support the Rabobank advice that the price trend is strengthening.

LOSING THE FORMULA
Under-pressure Aussie infant-formula firm Bellamy's has today sacked it CEO, and amended its manufacturing agreement with Fonterra. Its share price fell more than -40% when it returned to trading today.

WHOLESALE RATES UNCHANGED
NZ swap rates are unchanged today. The 90 day bank bill is up +1 bp and now at 1.99%.

NZ DOLLAR DOWN
The currency market is lower than at this time yesterday, but most of the decline happened overnight. The NZD is at 69.9 USc. On the cross rates, it is at 94.8 AUc, and at 66.3 euro cents. The TWI-5 index is at 76.2. Check our real-time charts here.

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

Daily exchange rates

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End of day UTC
Source: CoinDesk

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12 Comments

Massive surge on TradeMe in properties listed for sale in "Auckland City" from 1580 yesterday to 1614 today

lol

Seems like that "supply problem" solved itself when you crushed demand from the 50% of buyers who are investors

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Yes you'll see a lot more "Urgent Sales" being listed.

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We cannot really use the term massive at this stage NissanGTR although I see what you did there in a shock headline sort of way. Capitalization would have been more eye catching.

I have been closely observing TradeMe's total listing number for Auckland. I am even using Windows snipping tool to copy the figures into a Word document so that I can compare numbers in the nine main parts of Auckland as things progress.

The December 12 figure for Auckland was 9003
The January 5 figure was 8002
And today's figure is 8039

That is remarkably few additions considering people will be starting to list again this week. It was very slow on Monday and Tuesday of this week which I put down to the days that people would contact the RE agent. They would then come around and take photos and publish on TradeMe on Wednesday (today).
Even so 37 properties is quite a small jump and i was expecting many more. In late November the listings almost reached 10,000.

Not trying to be argumentative here just a bit scientific...okay CJ099?

* Actual new listings appears to be around 120 so 80 appear to have dropped off or been re-listed not sure how that works. Biggest jump in listings was Auckalnd City (+33) followed by Papakura (+15)

** Only one new listing mentioned Overseas Seller and none said Urgent in the bold blurb.

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I was looking at a Bayleys Real Estate window in Queenstown today. I saw a Jacks Point house that said "massive $60,000 price drop".

First time in a while I have seen a price drop. Asking price was still $1.2M - so it failed to sell at auction, and has been on the market with a price for.....say 2 weeks......

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James007, I have been checking these listings that claim a price drop to see how genuine it is. In many cases they were asking a cheeky high price initially. It is a marketing ploy. A good way to confirm this is to use the homes.co.nz tool. Is the current list price below the homes.co.nz middle price?

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Stop the spin and stop shilling for (them)

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Are you serious?
The longer a house is on market for the harder it is to sell.

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I agree and it is a good argument for putting a realistic price tag or reserve on in the first place. This is something the wife and I tend to argue about. The last two houses I sold went for well above the reserve at auction.

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>when clearance rates were 90% and Chinese buyers were feasting on anything for sale

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Why does Mr Chaston always overblow the car market?

So if i am 1m tall and my sister is 1.5m tall, she is 150% above me? I don't think so. Sales are 50% above the average not 150%.

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Listed yesterday. INSANE $1mil for small piece of land only:
http://www.realestate.co.nz/2982261

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Our system requires new money created as debt. Prices need to keep going up and up for the other option is the big unknown.

The big news is above, those institutions selling gold, I suspect the gold was used as collateral and they got a call.
Gold doesn't just disappear

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