Mortgage pain: Westpac, several smaller banks lift home loan rates - again

Westpac has increased some of its short term home loan rates - the second time it’s done so in the past two months.

It comes despite a pause from the Reserve Bank in hikes to the official cash rate, which it says has peaked, and last week left unchanged at 5.5 per cent.

Westpac’s six-month special and standard fixed home loan rates will increase 10 basis points (bps) to 7.19 per cent and 7.79 per cent, effective from July 25.

Its one-year fixed special will rise 20bps, also to 7.19 per cent, while its standard rate will increase 20bps to 7.79 per cent.

The 18-month home loan rate will increase 6bps for both its special (6.95 per cent) and standard (7.55 per cent) rates.

In late May, Westpac also bumped its standard six-month and one-year rates up 20bps.

“While the OCR was left unchanged on July 12, we’ve seen an overall rise in wholesale interest rates in recent months. These are the rates we pay when obtaining some of our funding to support borrowers with fixed term lending,” a Westpac NZ spokesperson said.

“We’re always looking to offer competitive choices and good value to customers. Recently, we were the first bank to introduce a ‘special’ five-year rate of 5.99 per cent, which we continue to have available for eligible customers looking to lock in longer-term certainty on their repayments.”

Outside of the big four banks, and Kiwibank, two other New Zealand banks announced rate changes today.

Heartland Bank said from today it would be increasing its one-year fixed home loan rates from 6.40 per cent to 6.59 per cent. Its two-year fixed rate will jump from 6.20 per cent to 6.45 per cent and its three-year fixed rate will move from 5.95 per cent to 6.15 per cent.

Also moving today were some of the Co-operative Bank’s home loan rates across its standard, first home buyer and owner occupied offerings. Both its standard fixed six-month and one-year rates increased from 7.29 per cent to 7.39 per cent.

The latest mortgage rate hikes won’t help homeowners already feeling squeezed by rising living costs, especially those rolling off lower fixed rates this year.

Less than three weeks ago ASB, ANZ and Kiwibank also lifted their home loan rates in the same week.

A Canstar NZ comparison of home loans shows the average one-year fixed owner-occupier mortgage rate as of June 30 was 7.12 per cent - albeit with a wide disparity between the lowest and highest rates - compared with 2.58 per cent in August 2021.

But the average rate (fixed) being paid on mortgage lending in May was just 4.77 per cent, according to Reserve Bank figures.

And recent Centrix figures showed how mortgage arrears rose to 1.32 per cent of the active population in May, up from 1.27 per cent in April, to the highest level reported since March 2020, when home loan arrears were at 1.49 per cent.

There were 19,500 mortgage accounts reported as past due in May, up 34 per cent on a year-on-year basis, according to Centrix.