The economy is officially back in recession, and the prospects for a weaker labour market are scaring people. So, is everything bad and should we all go to Australia?
Building costs have shot up by a whopping 40% over the last 3-4 years, and when you throw in sky-high interest rates and hurdles from the Resource Management Act, developers and home buyers alike are dealing with a real headache.
Many Kiwi who had been holding off selling their properties are now putting them up for sale. But with plenty of existing properties entering the market, the outlook has just darkened further for developers of multi-unit complexes.
The toilet paper shortage crisis is over — but is it turn for housing shortages in New Zealand?
If the Reserve Bank were to raise the cash rate again, they would overly depress the economy and end up having to cut interest rates aggressively through 2025 and 2026. So is it still likely that an extra tightening of monetary policy will occur?
Price rises in recent years have hit some areas much harder than others - and Squirrel guest blogger, Rodney Dickens, reckons the government's got something to do with that (and not in a good way).
The Reserve Bank is giving nothing away ahead of its first Official Cash Rate announcement of the year, in late February, but the market is increasingly anticipating rate falls to start sometime this year.
With NZ's latest inflation numbers out in late January, it looks like we're finally winning the battle — and we could see annual inflation come down relatively quickly in the coming months. So what would that mean for interest rates?
Put really simply, the Official Cash Rate is the interest rate that the banks earn on any money they’re holding with the Reserve Bank, and the rate they pay if they need to borrow funds.
Wholesale rates are one of the big drivers of bank mortgage rates — and in the last eight weeks or so, they’ve fallen about 0.7%. It’s a significant drop, which means they’re now back down to roughly where they were a year ago. So what does this mean for borrower interest rates?
In late 2022, the RBNZ warned it would need to tip New Zealand into recession in order to get inflation under control. And yet, despite all the rate increases Kiwi borrowers have endured, so far, that promised recession is yet to eventuate. Squirrel guest blogger, Rodney Dickens, explains why that is.
Confirmation of the earlier than expected restoration of interest expense deductibility has not produced an extra surge in demand. The demand seems to be steadily increasing rather than surging. But what lies ahead?