We have enjoyed rising reader support in 2022 and for that we are very grateful. More readers than ever came to read our coverage of the New Zealand economy and the forces that influence it.
It was a rocky ride for the economy in 2022 as we transitioned out of the pandemic status and learned to live with its consequences. The pandemic hasn't actually gone away, but its initial virulence has waned and we have built some sort of tolerance to it. The progression from the initial 2020 onset to the live-with-it status in late 2022 has been handled well by everyone, for most showing a maturity that should stand us in good stead for another new threat. Some of us claimed to be know-alls, but most of us learned a lot about how such emergencies are best handled.
Now is the time to celebrate what we have achieved as a community, and with the summer holidays upon us, that is an ideal time to take stock.
Here at interest.co.nz we are looking back on 2022 and seeing some impressive gains.
We are glad you have been with us and hope you will join us again in 2023.
In 2022 we published 2,801 articles, almost all of them original work. Plus we published countless updates to our deep resource pages, tables, calculators and charts.
The sharp rise in readership that built in 2020 has stayed with us and expanded in 2022. Many new readers joined us. To all of you, I say thank you for staying with us.
And to our supporters, our deepest gratitude to you - for without you, we would not be able to sustain our journalistic independence and focus. Your support not only enables our news reporting but also supports the research, data collection and technical expertise to keep the many plates spinning here at interest HQ!
If you are not already a supporter, you can become one here. The benefit of ad-free might be a valuable way to read our content.
At the start of 2022, the average two year mortgage rate was 4.21% and the one year term deposit rate was 2.13%.
But we are ending the year with these rates at 6.58% and 5.17% respectively. The fixed mortgage rate rose +237 bps in the year and the TD rate rose even more, up +304 bps, a relative change that might surprise some readers.
As a country, we have ended the year in reasonable economic shape and probably better than many (including me) thought at the start. But there is little doubt that storm clouds are building, helped along by a central bank that is determined to quash inflation. As someone who lived though the 1980's inflation fights, ensuring it doesn't get embedded is a worthy objective. The later it is tackled that broader the pain.
It has been our wider coverage of the economic changes that have attracted new readers and kept current readers engaged.
New Zealand is not a large country. We have just 4 mln adults 18 years and older. And yet in 2022 more than 2.5 mln of them used our news reporting or data resources at least once during the year ("unique visits" were 3.2 mln but probably many readers accessed us from multiple devices).
Readers actually dialed up 25.3 mln pages of content, and more than in 2020 which was a level we thought would be a record which would stand for a long time. By any measure, that is a lot of content to deliver.
We aim to be an intelligent read for people who want to understand what is going on in our economy, and the outside forces that also shape it. Although we are still a desktop read to take full advantage of the tables, charts and other embedded resources we offer readers, readership on mobile and tablets has stayed high at almost 60%. What is remarkable about the use of our service on mobile is that engagement time of the small screen is high - in fact, it is slightly higher than for desktop, showing that intelligent analysis does have a place on a smartphone.
We appreciate your support of our live-and-free service, and we wish everyone Happy Holidays and good weather where ever you are. If you value what you get for "free", we would appreciate your support via our Press Patron facility at the top of this page. (Obviously what we do costs heaps, and advertising is a fickle revenue stream. Your support is valuable beyond what you may realise.)
Although most of our staff are taking a break as well, we will have daily updates and some unique content in our regular style.
International financial markets may get 'interesting' in January and we will be covering that and what it means for New Zealand.
In the meantime, here are the ten articles that readers read the most in 2022:
10. David Chaston's July report that ANZ is the first main Aussie bank to offer 4% for a one year deposit as it raises TD rates
https://www.interest.co.nz/personal-finance/116931/anz-first-main-bank-…
9. Jenée Tibshraeny's April look at how the interest rates banks use to stress test mortgage applicants are due to rise
https://www.interest.co.nz/borrowing/115491/closer-look-how-interest-ra…
8. David Hargreaves September report of BNZ warning, saying the RBNZ should not be increasing its forecasts of how high the Official Cash Rate might go
https://www.interest.co.nz/bonds/117777/bnz-economists-warn-global-rece…
7. David Chaston's June report of the arrival of a 4% one year term deposit rate
https://www.interest.co.nz/personal-finance/116210/first-time-almost-se…
6. David Hargreave's summary of a March Capital Economics report that said our housing markets look vulnerable to 'even a modest rise' in interest rates rateshttps://www.interest.co.nz/property/115057/independent-global-economic-…
5. David Hargreave's October report of the nasty rise in Q3 CPI inflation
https://www.interest.co.nz/business/118044/searing-domestic-inflation-6…
4. David Hargreave's October report of the rush by boomers to withdraw KiwiSaver funds
https://www.interest.co.nz/personal-finance/117857/fma-says-over-65s-wi…
3. Greg Ninness's April report of the first signs the REINZ HPI was starting to fall quickly
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/115362/reinz-house-price-index-alre…
2. David Hargreaves July report of the collapse in residential construction sentiment in the gloomy ANZ Business Outlook Survey
https://www.interest.co.nz/business/116935/collapse-residential-constru…
and the most read article of 2022 was
1. David Chaston's report of the sharp Septmeber mortgage rate increases from ANZ following the preceding drive higher in wholesale swap rates
https://www.interest.co.nz/personal-finance/117670/new-zealands-largest…
Our resource pages continue to far outstrip our news article readership and these resources continue to grow impressively. Of note in 2022 is the growth of our auction monitoring database. This now rivals our huge mortgage rate database activity. Many of our regular resources like our dairy industry payout history page, auction results, bonds data, and calculator pages, as examples, all were far more popular than almost any news article. Your ability to dig into the data behind the news is what makes us special.
And finally, much of our service would not have been possible without the active support of the many readers who do so via the PressPatron platform. To you an extra special thanks again for all your support in 2022. Ad revenues remain particularly fickle and will always be a problem for us, so your direct support has enabled us to invest in the service in 2022 in significant ways. What you see and use is significantly enabled by your active support.
We are looking forward to next year.
Enjoy your holiday break. See you again in 2023.
51 Comments
A big year for interest.co.nz, and much deserved, but I somehow think 2023 will be bigger.
Many financial topics which the average person never really spent much time thinking about before are now being discussed around the dinner table.
The legacy news media in this country is shocking, and set to get worse with the new changes. Regurgitated soundbites, uninspired journalism, blatant agenda-setting, mass censorship, and kowtowing to financial interests means we get a very narrow perspective on events.
I feel like interest.co.nz's future is just as important for NZ as it is bright.
Many financial topics which the average person never really spent much time thinking about before are now being discussed around the dinner table.- this may be a wee bit of silver lining, even my young adult children are asking and talking about the how and why (mortgage rates,inflation etc). Where as before it was all spend spend spend, not a care in the world.
Interest.co.nz is like a haven for any economic or finance geek and I love the comment section, please don't ever censor these comments too heavily.
One suggestion would be a notifications tab for us who comment often to get notified when we have a reply to our comments, this would also drive more page hits. Just don't email us the notifications lol
Love your work
Actually, yes. No offence to the hard working team of writers / researchers, but I find the comments to be at least equally valuable as a barometer on the state of things.
My PressPatron renewed just the other day. Thanks to the team. Happy to continue to support you.
My thanks to the Interest.co.nz team. But i would also add in Chris Trotter and Brian Easton for some often very thoughtful articles. But i would like to especially thank the commenters. I especially enjoy the comment streams following articles for their often cynical humour and their opinions and the ensuing discussions. so much fun and learning!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
A recurring martyr who spammed this thread with gospel-like predictions of the housing market and market rates. Has so far been fairly spot on, 7% interest rates by EOY, and 30% drop in prices (though only in few suburbs, and very close in a couple small centers).
Previous accounts were:
2022 (banned)
MMXII (banned)
Future (banned)
Premonition (banned)
Plus I believe there was one more in the middle I can't recall though. 2022 and Future both had the longest stints, and would occasionally contribute to conversation meaningfully, otherwise it was a general copy/pasta&praise routine.
Yvil dobbed them in one of those times for a nasty comment. 2022 became exceptionally spammy, first comment of most articles was the same guarantee.
Can't be too harsh, has kept the same agenda all year and has been proven correct. Makes you wonder if the likes of TA were to comment on here, how long before he got banned?
"Interest rates have peaked! Riiiight now!... actually now! wait... hmmmm now! They've peeeeeaked nnnn-now! Interest rates are at or near their peak nn-now. They'll peak early next year. They'll definitely peak now or next year. They'll peak..."
He's a poet-warrior.
An Acolyte of the One who sees all.
He brings forth the scrolls at the appointed time, and none may question.
He shall return and proffer the wisdom of the scrolls to all who would listen, even those, such as I, who are unworthy.
OK, I'm banned now too.
What is remarkable about the use of our service on mobile is that engagement time of the small screen is high - in fact, it is slightly higher than for desktop, showing that intelligent analysis does have a place on a smartphone
The desktop is still king - smartphones are convenient, like a term deposit, but desktops are more like a balanced portfolio - they do things better.
I also add my big thanks to the team at Interest for their amazing work.
I would also like to encourage readers and certainly every commenter to contribute $10/month (or more). $10/month is about 30cts/day, if we have a laptop or phone and an internet connection to read the articles, then we can also afford 30cts per day. To those who aren't yet contributors, why don't you click the "BECOME A SUPPORTER" button right now and look at it as a Christmas present for all the staff at Interest!
Kia ora from Bali. Interest.co.nz is the first thing I check each morning. I seem to manage my affairs quite easily with just a smartphone. For me even a laptop isn't necessary.
Thanks for all the interesting (pun intended) articles and enjoy your holidays. See you in 2023
Some stories just never seem to end. I randomly came across this on Gareth Morgan's site from July 2016: Geoff Simmons interviewing Bernard Hickey:
What can the Reserve Bank do about rising house prices in New Zealand? | The Morgan Foundation
If you skip to 8:00 of the vid it's kind of funny. Geoff says RBNZ was reluctant to introduce LVRs and DTIs to control the housing market because they are meant to be used for managing risk (as per their financial stability mandate). Bernard confirms, then says they are also worried that a housing market boom could spill over to inflation, "although to be frank they don't have much to worry about with inflation right now - it's 0.4%, and they need to get inflation back up to around 2%". Well, they managed that in spades.
Then at 9.23 Geoff asks if the housing market could hit the skids within the next 6 months. Bernard's answer is that property investors can just see low rates and tax free gains - a free kick, so unless the RBNZ does something significant then that is your answer.
We just muddled our way here. with the problems in plain sight long before 2016 of course.
Carbon farming and the cash incentives are whats doing that. Land prices topping 20k /ha The Labour gvt are gonna let that fish run next year in 23, despite innocently saying they are pulling it in.
On carbon, we are supposed to be finding solutions not doing offsets. Lots of talk about solutions to cow burps but no fixes.
Carbon farming and the cash incentives are whats doing that.
Even before them they were out of whack, returns on agricultural land in my area went from around 7-8% down to maybe 3-4% over the past 6-8 years.
It's fairly difficult to tell how precisely real estate will get priced relative to yields, because it's rarely a straight yield purchase. There's emotions, benefits of existing use rights, potential upsides from rezoning, scarcity, etc.
Thanks for your hard work everyone. I have been lurking this site for years now and am finally going to become a supporter. It was because of this site that I locked in 2.99 % for 5 years when I could so you have already saved me far more money than the cost of supporting you.
Thanks Interest team and commentators! I came to this site this year in the hope that I would find real news articles and not just opinion pieces. I have not been disapointed! The comments section is as entertaining as watching Ricky Gervais! Have a great festive season everyone and heres to 2023, the year of change!
I regularly tell people about this site; the vast amount of information it contains, the interesting articles and the (mostly) interesting comments.
If I had one criticism it would be that there are too many articles on the property market for my liking, but I suppose that simply mirrors its importance to so many Kiwis. That is something I would like to see diminish over time. based on my own experience over nearly 20 years of having both a share portfolio and a rental property( at the Mount), I remain convinced that shares have overall, given me a higher return.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.