House buyers ready to pounce on OCR cut

The housing market is poised and ready to go this afternoon if the RBNZ cuts the OCR for the first time since Covid. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The Kākā

Morena. Long stories short:

• The RBNZ could cut the OCR for the first time since February 2020 at 2pm today, but housing supply shortages are worse than ever, creating the risk of another price boom as lower mortgage rates and looser lending rules for first home buyers ramp up more household borrowing.

• Leaked emails from Wellington hospital suggest the Government has frozen capital and IT spending in health, putting hospital projects worth billions in doubt, just when more capacity and technology investment is needed.

• Simeon Brown is ploughing ahead with trying to solve this winter’s electricity crisis with gas imports, but Rewiring Aotearoa Chief Scientist Saul Griffith argues in an upcoming paper with RBNZ Chief Economist Paul Conway and Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Chief Economist Geoff Simmons that going big and fast with solar and batteries would be much cheaper.

The Top Six things

Here’s the top six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, August 14:

1. Home buyers ready to pounce

RBNZ could cut OCR, unleashing buyers in supply-constrained market