Mortgages
2 min read
Here is your monthly interest rate report.
This gives you a quick, plain English update on interest rates.
No fluff. Just simple facts to help you decide what to do with your mortgage.
A few banks dropped their interest rates over the last month:
Not huge drops. These banks are just following the other big lenders to meet the market.
It’s not a sign that we’re about to get a fresh round of interest rate cuts in the next few weeks.
You can see all the latest interest rate changes here.
Here are the discounts my team at Opes Mortgages is negotiating off the bank’s interest rates.
This gives you a sense of the discount you might be able to get.
The biggest discounts are still on the 1-year and 6-month rates.
The average bank is advertising 7.09% for the 1-year rate.
But, most are discounting that to 6.86%. That’s a 0.23% discount.
That’ll save $18 a week on a standard $500k mortgage. That’s $965 saved over a year.
Here are all the discounts my mortgage brokers are negotiating:
I’ve also been asked if it’s worth switching banks to get a cheaper interest rate.
Often, it’s hard for borrowers to figure this out. After all, the banks don’t advertise their discounted rates.
So, I’ve run the numbers to see how much you could save on a $500k mortgage.
Here's what you'd save when moving from the bank with the highest rate to the bank with the lowest rate.
There is almost no difference with banks when it comes to the 1-year rate.
If you moved from the most expensive bank to the cheapest bank, you’d only save $3 a week. That’s $160 a year.                                                  Â
There’s more of a difference with the 3-year rate. The most expensive bank charges 6.65%. Whereas the cheapest bank charges 6.39%.
So, moving from the expensive bank to the cheaper bank would save $23.50 a week. That’s $1,222 a year.
Of course, there are costs to moving banks. So, have a chat with your mortgage adviser.
Or, hit reply if you want to work with me and my team. It’d be great to talk.
No change here. The servicing test rates haven’t moved at all. Read more about this here.
The Reserve Bank will review and release the OCR tomorrow.
It will probably stay at 5.5%. That’s almost certain.
As usual, the real action will be in the forecasts:
My colleague, Andrew, will dig into the forecasts in his newsletter (out on Thursday). Look out for it – it’s called Private Property.
And watch out for the big one. New inflation data comes next week (17th July).
If inflation falls to 3.6% (or below), that’s a good sign for interest rates.
And if you need help with your mortgage, hit reply and let me know your situation. I’ll come right back to you.
Talk to you again next month,
Pete
Mortgage broker for over 10 years, property investor and Managing Director at Opes Mortgages
Peter Norris, a certified mortgage adviser with 10+ years of experience, serves as the Managing Director at Opes Mortgages. Having facilitated over $1.2 billion in lending for 2000+ clients, Peter is a respected authority in property financing. He's a frequent writer for Informed Investor Magazine and Property Investor Magazine, while also being recognized as BNZ Mortgage Adviser of the Year in 2018 and listed among NZ Adviser's top advisers in 2022, showcasing his expertise.
