Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
Baycorp Finance has cut their floating rate to 5.49%.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
None here today.
DANGEROUSLY OUT OF CONTROL
In a clear sign the housing frenzy is well out of control, the national median house price rose +$50,000 in February from January, and the Auckland median price is up by +$100,000 for the month, the REINZ says. In one year, the Auckland median price is up +24%, freezing out even more aspiring home owners and leaving a market that only existing owners can transact in. From the start of 2020, there have been almost zero policy actions taken to restrain this frenzy and the ones that have been taken are being shown to be ineffective. The Jan-20 to Feb-21 increase in Auckland is the fastest rise in either percentage terms or dollar terms, ever. There is no evidence this frenzy is winding down.
RENTS A SIDELINE
In contrast, there is no evidence rental prices are rising in the same way. The Stats NZ rental index to February shows a rise of just +2.6% over the past year, and Auckland rents have slipped slightly. It also shows the heat going out of the Wellington market too. This data makes it clear investors are not trying to use housing investment for income generation - it is all about capital gains, and untaxed gains at that.
NO NEED?
Banks are under operational pressure keeping up with all the related mortgage activity. But they have no funding pressure to back up the higher lending levels. Yesterday the RBNZ signalled they were cancelling two lending support programs, and a check of the much-heralded Finding for Lending Program (FLP) shows they are not needing to draw on this either. No bank has used this since Kiwibank did very modestly on January 28. Perhaps the RBNZ is contemplating cancelling this support program too?
LESS IMPETUS
Food prices are not rising as fast as they have been over the past 18 months. They fell -0.9% in February from January to be just +1.2% higher in a year. Overall CPI is rising +1.4% so food prices are no longer driving overall inflation. Big recent falls in the cost of fruit and vegetables are behind this switch, mainly due to surplus supply here as the international trade in fresh produce has been severely interrupted. Restaurant and takeaway food price increases have consistently risen close to +4% pa and have done so for a long time. Meat prices have been falling for four consecutive months now. Grocery prices fell in February from a year ago for the first time in nearly 3 years and the most in 4½ years.
HIGHER MILK PAYOUT ESTIMATE
Rabobank has become the latest analyst to raise its 2020/21 farmgate milk payout price, choosing an estimate of $7.80/kgMS. They say, it's strong Chinese demand providing the uplift. You can see all current forecasts at the bottom of this page. Four of five analysts have estimates higher than Fonterra's own signalling.
YIELDS TURN LOWER
The latest tender of NZ Government bonds was very well supported today, bucking the recent trends. $450 mln was offered in three tranches and more than $1.6 bln was offered, leaving nearly $1.2 bln unsatisfied. That is a lot. Further, prices bid drove down yields, a turn-around from recent events. The May 2024 tranche was won at 0.57% pa yield, down from 0.63% two weeks ago. The April 2027 offering went for a 1.18% yield, down from the prior 1.23% pa. And the May 2041 yield was 2.58%, down from 2.73% two weeks ago.
TAME BY COMPARISON
It is not only Auckland and New Zealand property prices that are rising. Sydney has become the latest Australian city where residential property values have hit a record high, following Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and Hobart into uncharted territory. But to be fair, the Sydney increases are tame compared to the Auckland ones. Since October 2020, Sydney prices are up +5.7%. In that same period Auckland prices rose almost double that, up +10%. New Zealand's house price rises are getting raised-eye attention in Australia.
GOLD FIRMS
Gold is trading in Australia, and soon in Asian markets. So far today it is at US$1725 and up +US$14 from this time yesterday. However it is now -US$2/oz below where it ended in New York earlier, although +US$9/oz above the closing London fix.
EQUITIES GENERALLY HIGHER AGAIN
The S&P500 was +0.6% higher at the end of its trading session earlier today with the NASDAQ flat and the Dow reaching an all-time high. Tokyo has opened up +0.3%, and Hong Kong has opened up +0.6%. Shanghai has opened up +0.8% as the Home Team stays deployed to screw the scrum. Meanwhile, the ASX200 is down -0.5% in early afternoon trade and the NZX50 Capital Index has been flat today.
SWAP & BONDS RATES FALL FURTHER
We don't have today's closing swap rates yet. If there are movements today, we will note them here later when we get the data. But they likely to have declined again today, as they did yesterday. However the 90 day bank bill rate is down -1 bp at 0.32%. The Australian Govt ten year benchmark rate is down -4 bps today at 1.69%. The China Govt ten year bond is unchanged at 3.27%. The New Zealand Govt ten year is down -9 bps at 1.73% and now below the level of the earlier RBNZ fixing at 1.77% (-5 bps). The US Govt ten year has slipped -1 bp from this time yesterday at 1.53%.
NZD FIRMS
The Kiwi dollar is now at 72 USc and up +½c from this time yesterday. On the cross rates we have held to 93.1 AUc. Against the euro we have firmed to 60.4 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 is slightly higher at just under 74.
BITCOIN STILL MOVING UP
The price of bitcoin is rising further today, now at US$55,664 and up a further +2.7% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been a high +/- 4.0%.
This soil moisture chart is animated here.
The easiest place to stay up with event risk today is by following our Economic Calendar here ».
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74 Comments
It's not just here though...
https://propertydata.co.uk/charts/house-prices
https://dqydj.com/historical-home-prices/ US
Might have something to do with this...
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-1750-2015-and-un-pr…
Great article !!!
https://wolfstreet.com/2021/03/10/purchasing-power-of-the-dollar-dwindl…
the powers that be want to inflate the debt away which diminishes your purchasing power. ie. you are all getting getting a pay cut..
And how on earth do they think they are going to do that with untold millions upon millions of unemployed or idle workers across the globe who will all work for less and less to secure an income to feed themselves and their families? Workers whose jobs are being gigged and technologized in front of their eyes?
Oh, I know! It worked 40 years ago, so it will today!
And that, is why we are facing the problems we have today. They are ALL 'educated' along the same lines - our RBNZ Governor and his cohort included.
40 years ago the banks recruited 50,000 school-leavers a year to start at the bottom and work their way up, and sideways (other industries), clerking and typing away en masse. Today? Banks are closing branches and cutting staff - not taking them on. That principle applies across the economic board.
As I wrote above "This is going to be worth watching"
Just got annual renewal for car insurance. Same car, same risk, no claims and yet the ****ers cranked up the premium 55%. On top of last years 14% increase. So I ring them for an explanation. They say costs are going up, but I confidently explain that they are mistaken as the official CPI is struggling to make even 2%. Then they claimed they need to increase the premiums to bolster their reserves, but again I confidently explain their reserves should have shot up with the rising markets.
Anyway I got nowhere, so moved to a different insurer who gave same coverage for less than my old premium.
Beanie
You must be in the young high risk group.
Otherwise, shop around.
I'm with AA insurance. If you're a long-time member and get all your insurances with them they price pretty well. No price ramp ups for me this year.
Their call-out service is also pretty good but be careful who you get when you need a jump start. There's one who guy who will try and sell you a new battery whether you need it or not. And don't ask for advice if you buy a new car and some major mechanical defect arises...they will fob you off because they don't want to upset the particular car brand who advertises in their magazine.
Haha...I am getting old and have never made a motor vehicle insurance claim. There is zero theft or burglary crime in my low population district. Yes zero. So I am as low a risk as you could get really. Tower didn't care to keep me and so it was AA that got my business.
I have never heard of anyone I know using the AA callout service...around here you sort any problems yourself or another local will offer a tow if it's really bad. As for buying a lemon of a new car...stick with Japanese and stay away from diesels and 95% of the risk goes away.
Sydney should hand over Demographia's bronze medal to Auckland
Somewhat ahead Domain pushes up Auckland's median "In Auckland, the median now sits at $1,198,564, after climbing 13.3 per cent over the year, well above the median values in Sydney and Melbourne, at $895,933 and $717,767."
I've seen nothing like this since my trips to Ireland during the later years of the celtic tiger.
Kids, there are lovely properties for sale in Italy that you can buy outright for less than the deposit on a house in New Zealand. Consider your options very, very carefully before getting tied to a massive mortgage to live in some global backwater.
Mission accomplished and now to find a beautiful place to get married.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/its-a-beautiful-part-of-the-country-a-hb-…
The poverty business is booming. I guess dumping people in Rotorua is OK. Not sure they would agree to dumping people in Queenstown.
Several people spoken to by Stuff blame the homeless charity Visions of a Helping Hand Trust for some of the issues, accusing the trust of "shipping” homeless people into Rotorua from other centres to boost revenue.
The trust’s revenue has increased from $111,000 in 2018 to $1.3m for the year ended April 2020. Most of its income then was from MSD
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300246795/rotorua-has-become-a-dumping…
It is all about capital gain.
Don't agree.
We buy property based on cash return.
Last rental just before Xmas - standalone house in Auckland.
40% deposit.
3 year fixed rate mortgage
Return on equity just over 6.0% after all costs including management fees for next 3 years.
Not great but better than bank.
Sounds like you are charging above market rent. Assuming you got the lowest 3 year rate available on this site (2.45%) and your property manager is charging you 6.5% you have a rental yield of 4.1%. Assuming a $1m house that is approx. $790/week or probably over $800 when you take the rates, insurance into account.
James - Your figures are close enough, but we are charging market rent, the house price was less as we had some tidying to do which I added to the purchase price for this calculation.
I was just trying to fight back against the constant focus on this site that the only return is tax free capital gains.
Even in the current market with care and effort there are relatively good cash returns available.
There are risks - the obvious one being an interest rate increase - so we fixed for 3 years.
If people want to pay too much for something they should be able to, provided they have the money. House prices could easily be controlled if people weren't supplied with borrowed money quite so freely.
However the banks would probably need to collude with each other to ensure they all get their share of the mortgage market and this would be like price fixing. Currently they fiercely compete with each other to enable someone to buy a property, driving down interest rates and driving up loan amounts. Also mortgager's increasing equity feeds back into the system like some sort of positive loop.
It is a conundrum. Maybe mortgage lending services aren't like cars or potato top pies.
It is a conundrum.
No it isn't. Credit supply creates demand to capitalise the perception that discounted present values of residential property cash flows will continue on an upward trajectory indefinitely, so long as the RBNZ executes so called QE monetary easing actions to supposedly reduce the discount factor, with or without success.
Hence banks extend 60 % of their lending to one third of already wealthy households to speculate in the residential property market because the RBNZ offers them an RWA capital reduction incentive, to do so.
Furthermore,
.. the most important macroeconomic variable cannot be the price of money. Instead, it is its quantity. Is the quantity of money rationed by the demand or supply side? Asked differently, what is larger – the demand for money or its supply? Since money – and this includes bank money – is so useful, there is always some demand for it by someone. As a result, the short side is always the supply of money and credit. Banks ration credit even at the best of times in order to ensure that borrowers with sensible investment projects stay among the loan applicants – if rates are raised to equilibrate demand and supply, the resulting interest rate would be so high that only speculative projects would remain and banks’ loan portfolios would be too risky. Link
And banks' stubborn narrow focus that enabling only a minority cohort of society to buy and sell existing residential properties to each other constitutes a functioning economy to support long term growth prospects for all, in a manner we should be accustomed to expect, which is clearly not the case.
The latest tender of NZ Government bonds was very well supported today, bucking the recent trends. $450 mln was offered in three tranches and more than $1.6 bln was offered, leaving nearly $1.2 bln unsatisfied.
What’s left, then, for rising yields (modestly falling prices) is entirely reflation alone. That isn’t to say inflation, which is something very different. In fact, from March 2016 like early 2018, this difference was palpable as the BOND ROUT!!!! linked to “too many” Treasuries failed to materialize month after month, year after year. Cries of surefire inflation were consistently lobbed about from the media perch and Bond Kings’ thrones, but never once from the market’s actual condition.
From TIPS to 10s, auction demand to gold prices, modest reflation is once again left to answer for this 2021 market “volatility” – and nothing more than that. Bullion prices inversely reflect long-end Treasury yields, which wouldn’t be the case on the cusp of a major consumer price breakout like the wildness pictured in academic measures like M2. Link
11 November 2020
This is totally out of control, Robertson and Treasury and RBNZ have got themselves into a tangled mess that is beyond their control. Nothing they can do about it. Anything they do from here on in will make matters worse
They were warned in November 2020
https://www.interest.co.nz/property/107905/reserve-bank-makes-surprisin….
And, so it has come to pass
Ok, time for an observation and a whinge.
I have been getting, seeing and hearing of a lot of poor to awful customer service in the hospitality sector recently.
Obviously they have been whacked by covid, that's a real shame and they have no control over that.
But what they do have control over is offering good service.
I went to a bar tonight after work with a mate, the waiter spent most of the time talking to a group of 3 patrons sitting outside. I complained about it when we went to pay the bill, to be fair I didn't need to complain.much, the waiter very quickly agreed and gave me my two drinks on the house.
They need to stop feeling friggin sorry for themselves, and lift their game.
Sloppy.
late last year we stopped at a popular tourist place for a few nights - not Queenstown. Significant number of restaurant staff were foreign backpackers. Two of the wait staff told us their visas were due to run out and if they wanted them renewed, they could only work in Hort/viticulture. Recently we went back to the same establishment as last year. This time very few wait staff were foreign. Mainly young kiwis with little to no experience. Service was not a patch on last year - ended up also being given some items for free, even though we didn't complain. (Think of an episode of Fawlty Towers and you wouldn't be too far out)
IMO we need to be a little understanding of short comings in the hospo industry at present. Many experienced foreign staff are no longer available to them and kiwis just don't rate waitressing etc as a sound career choice like it can be in Europe etc.
Supply chain disruptions, not good https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/124479073/supermarkets-are-ru…
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300247294/the-elephant-…
Above article was few days back when average price in Auckland was million - Now what would one say when house price rise by 10% in a month that is more than annual family earning in a month and that too Tax free.
Stop raping FHB.
1985, when a new graduate starting at Macquarie Bank would be told "If you're good enough, you'll be a millionaire in 10 years time"
1995, when a new graduate starting at Macquarie Bank would be told "If you're good enough, you'll get a million dollar bonus in a year's time"
2005,when a new graduate starting at Macquarie Bank would be told "If you're good enough, you'll start on a salary of a million dollars for the year"
2015, Rinse and Repeat from '85, but replace one million dollars with ten.
That's what change looks like, and it all has to be paid for, by guess who?!
Is this what the %@$& wants :
https://www.domain.com.au/news/high-property-prices-in-new-zealand-coul…
Understand using foul language is bad but here wer are just using the foul language but the establishment is actually screwing the family and making average Kiwi poor or creating FOMO ti be in high debt for the rest of his live and in both scenarion from here on FHB and average Kiwi (without house) is screwed by action or inaction of %@$.
AKL & Wgtn, are well above Syd & Melb - and will still be up up up further. In the end? what kicks in NZ.. is that RBNZ & govt credibility, the current market 'confidence' is based on a borrowed 'credibility', here's a good read:
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/worthless-property-listed-for-d…
If I was young and angry I'd grab a bunch of mates and chain ourselves together in the middle of the lambton quay bus lane with placards. Or write my displeasure in spray paint in 6 foot high letters on the front of a government building. If the media aren't doing their job they need some material as a catalyst to start writing about. In this sort of climate creative civil disobedience is a fantastic opportunity. The best thing is, you have to wear a mask, so you might as well make it work for your own advantage.
@Ezy Teachers and Nurses did a peaceful protest not too long ago - they got results! Consider though, they had leverage - teachers are day-care-providers and nurses are 'essential works' [I dislike that term]. What leverage do FHB's have? Also consider teachers and nurses were satiated (for now) by simply increasing salaries and benefits. Throwing a pile of bank notes at your nearest paddock is not going to make a housing development spring into existence over-night. Labour has found out the money piles actually blows away!
There is truth in Kiwi's being sheep to our own detriment. Having said that, I'll point out Kiwi's do not have a rebellious/destructive spirit towards our government - this is good in the sense it keeps the fabric-of-society together. NZ's social dysfunction comes out in crime and demoralization.
One powerful thing FHB's can do is simply Tell The Truth. The truth is cutting and powerful. Also comedy; making fun of oppressive policy makers. Housing is a basic need, so of course under current market conditions, times are very stressful for many - but please remember; life is not about the abundance or things. People covet home ownership. What that means is many people BELIEVE they CAN'T be happy without it - that may be neither here nor there, but it's true.. and it's a cutting truth [on reflection] in many ways.
Good comment Zack. Plenty of creativity and thinking in there. Kiwis in the past have galvanized for good causes - nuclear free nz, apartheid, hikois, etc. We're slow to start, but when we do is all on. And disagree about happiness. If you have a family, it's very hard to be happy without being able to provide health, shelter and food. Basic human needs those.
Good points, lack of leverage for FHBs.
Also remember that universities were once the source of a lot of protest movements. However, as everyone knows the university culture is very different now and it's just not the same in terms of facilitating a protest movement.
Also for most people in their early 20s buying a house isn't on the radar.
I also think we have a whole young generation of people who have been indoctrinated by neoliberalism, who are probably quite fatalist about housing - if that is the market reality then that is the market reality
What's the point? Young people weren't listened to when over 170k mainly young people marched for action on climate change. Government came out and said they are working on it, over 2 years later there has been next to no action.
It's a very dangerous precedent for a government to hear protestors, claim you are going to change, then not do anything. It very much encourages people to take "next steps", which I have heard from some young people on the fringe.
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