Dawn chorus: Landlords borrow big
RBNZ figures show landlords borrowed $4.3b in month of December while first home buyers borrowed $1.7b; ANZ stops taking online mortgage applications to stem flood of demand
TLDR: Morena. Reserve Bank figures show 45% of the $9.6b of new lending into the housing market in the month of December was to landlords, while just $1.7b went to first home buyers. Demand for mortgages is so strong ANZ has stopped taking online applications and BNZ will only deal with existing customers. The LVR restrictions can’t come soon enough.
Watch out on Wednesday at 2pm for the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Statement for any signs it might tighten monetary policy. Markets are betting on hikes next year and pushed the Kiwi dollar up to a fresh three-year high over the weekend of 73.25 USc. That already represents a 3% ‘tighter’ currency than the bank forecast in November. I suspect the bank will be a lot more dovish than the markets expect.
Overseas over the weekend, Scott Morrison chose to become the second Australian given the covid-19 vaccine yesterday and Australia reopened its one-way travel bubble with New Zealand last night. Morrison said he wanted to show the public how safe the vaccine was. Also, Uber’s contractor-dependent business model is in doubt in Britain after the Supreme Court there ruled drivers were employees, and Bitcoin rose over US$57,680 over the weekend, meaning all the Bitcoin in the world are worth a collective US$1t.
Briefly in our political economy





In the global political economy

My longer reads and listens over the weekend




Signs o’ the times news


Ka kite anō
Bernard
PS: Please take a moment at 12.51pm today to remember the 10th anniversary of the main Christchurch quake that claimed 185 lives.