A review of things you need to know before you go home on Friday; Housing market weakens, factories expanding strongly, momentum in the Akl Housing Accord, rural borrowing all for dairy

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

TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There were no changes today - so far.

TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
There were no changes today.

WEAK VOLUMES, LOW LISTING LEVELS
The REINZ says median house prices kept rising in August and are now at $420,000, +7.7% above the same month a year ago. But the volume of sales is in decline and were at their lowest level of the year, excepting January.

HAPPY FACTORIES
Despite the high dollar (or maybe because there is a prospect that it will decline), factories reported a strong expansion in August, according to the BusinessNZ/BNZ PMI out today. BNZ says that augers well for Q3. Only the "Central region" (ie Wellington) contracted.

YIELDS AND SUPPORT LOWER
The NZDMO's inflation-linked $200 mln bond tender today achieved lower yields, but there is a noticeable decline in support for these.

MORE HOUSES TO BE BUILT
Auckland mayor Len Brown and National Party campaigning minister Nick Smith unveiled 17 new special housing areas they say have potential for 8,000 new homes that can be built in Auckland. That brings the Auckland Housing Accord up to 80 special housing areas, potentially allowing  for the development of 41,500 homes to be fast tracked. Momentum is being achieved.

FOOD IS CHEAP
Food price monitoring by Stats NZ for August was out today showing little to be concerned about. Perhaps the only surprising thing was that beef and lamb prices are down, despite rising international prices.

RURAL CREDIT REVIEW
The RBNZ released its annual rural credit review today, for the year ended June 2014. Rural credit grew $1.9 bln to $52.8 bln - and all that growth was into the dairy sector who increased their borrowings by +5.8% in a year. 65% of all rural borrowing is by the dairy industry and this is up from 62% six years ago. 70% of all borrowing is on floating terms.

NZD CURRENCY VOLUMES
The August NZD currency volumes were reported by the RBNZ today and declined again. Swaps especially were lower. Cross border trading was where the weakness was, although local trading was higher.

WHOLESALE RATES
Swap rates fell today -1 bps across the board after falling -5 overnight, so there has been a noticeable recovery today, almost getting back to yesterday's levels. The 90 day bank bill rate was up strongly today at 3.73%.

OUR CURRENCY
Check our real-time charts here. The NZD held its won today. It is down marginally to 81.6 USc but up against the Aussie to 90.0 AUc. The TWI is now under 78.6.

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