Borrowers continue to flock to fixed-term home loans with the percentage by value on floating rate mortgages now the lowest since April 2010.
A total of $64.3 billion worth of mortgages were on floating rates at the end of May, or 33.1% of the total by value, the latest Reserve Bank figures show.
That's a month-on-month drop of 1.8 percentage points, the second biggest since the Reserve Bank started compiling fixed versus floating data in 1998. The biggest monthly fall was also recorded this year, 2.7 percentage points in March.
The drops have come against a backdrop of well publicised increases to the Official Cash Rate in the Reserve Bank's first tightening cycle since before the global financial crisis. So far this year the OCR has been hiked three times to 3.25% from its record low of 2.5%.
Economists expect increases to continue this year and next, lifting the OCR up to about 4.5%.
Banks have been increasing their floating mortgage rates in response to the OCR hikes, with these now around 6.5%. Major banks have also started lifting their longer-term fixed mortgage rates with the lowest advertised two year rates now up towards 6%. See all banks' advertised, or carded, home loan rates here.
The Reserve Bank figures show the volume of fixed-term loans also increased at their fastest monthly rates in March and May this year, at 36,440 and 23,779, respectively. At the end of May there was a total of 1,459,315 residential mortgages. Of these 749,074, or 51.33%, were fixed, and 710,241, or 48.66%, floating.
The May fixed versus floating figures show 66.9% of home loans by value were fixed at the end of the month, or $129.709 billion of the $194.357 billion total.
The increase in the value of fixed-term mortgages so far this year is significant, as is the drop in floating mortgages. At the end of 2013 some 58.6% was fixed, and 41.28% floating. The value fixed for at least one-year stood at just under $49.9 billion at December 31, or 44.77% of the value of all fixed mortgages. By the end of May the value of mortgages fixed for at least one-year had risen to $65.8 billion, or 50.72%.
Despite the recent stampede of borrowers to fix mortgages, there's still some way to go to reach the record high. The highest percentage by value that has been fixed since the Reserve Bank started compiling the data was 87.5% in August 2007, when just 12.5% was floating. The highest percentage by value floating was 63.1% in April 2012 when just under 37% was fixed.
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9 Comments
Possibly downlow, but you can't blame them if they were readers of this blog as they would have been hugely mislead by the loudest of them here who were calling for two rate cuts when at 2.50%. Now its just calls to go back to 2.50%...and at 4.50% no doubt to go back to 3.50% etc. etc. No one knows how this will pan out over time yet many do not understand what the term risk management is, and that they don't know and could well be betting the house on it. Happens through even cycle.
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