At a headline level, the $5.121 billion advanced in total for December 2022 was the lowest in the 2022 year apart from the always slow month of January. And beyond that, if you exclude January months and the April and May 2020 lockdown-affected figures, it's the lowest monthly tally since February 2019. However, back on those first home buyers (FHBs), a notable feature as the overall mortgage figures have kept on dropping over the past year is that the FHB grouping has stayed pretty strong in the market. Separately, the RBNZ provided arguably some of the very good reasons why new mortgage monies are declining so much with the release of the quarterly mortgage loan reconciliation figures. But of course many people have not yet rolled over to the new higher mortgage rates now prevailing.

Source: Stuff January 31, 2023 03:10 UTC