News

Mortgage rates down after OCR cut
2015-08-07

Mortgage rates have begun to fall in response to the Reserve Bank's decision to cut the Official Cash Rate.The central bank this morning lowered the benchmark interest rate from 3.25 percent to 3 percent and signalled further cuts were likely.
 
The country's biggest bank, ANZ Bank, will cut its floating rate from 6.39 percent to 6.24 percent from next Monday.Kiwibank cut its floating rate from 6.4 percent to 6.15 percent effective immediately for new borrowers, and in two weeks' time for existing customers.The BNZ has dropped the rate on its floating home loan product from 6.34 percent to 5.99 percent, from Monday.
 
The Co-operative Bank...

Read more
What is loan protection insurance?
2015-08-05

You probably wouldn’t think twice about taking out insurance to protect your car or home, but what about protecting your financial commitments?
 
If you can’t work due to illness or injury, if you’re involuntarily unemployed, or if you die, loan protection insurance can help you and your family better manage personal or home loan debt.
 
Loan protection insurance can be purchased in two ways: you can take it out when your loan is first approved, or you can choose to buy it at a later date, to protect an existing...

Read more
Half of hits on property site from overseas
2015-07-31

Househunters based in China made up more than half the visitors to New Zealand's top Mandarin property sales web site, most only looking in Auckland.Sam Yin, founder and chief executive of Auckland-based real estate portalHougarden, which means backyard in Mandarin, yesterday released his data on the 496,575 people who visited the site in February, March and April.
Of those, 53 per cent (262,042) were people who were based in China, compared with 45 per cent (223,607) of people who were based in New Zealand. Another 1.5 per cent (7498) were based in Hong Kong, Mr Yin said.But he said that many of the offshore visitors left...

Read more