Jen Baird, Chief Executive at REINZ says: “The Reserve Bank’s announcement today of a 50 basis points increase to the OCR is the eighth increase in a row, taking the OCR to 3.5%. 
 

“With unemployment still low and inflation high, an increase to the OCR is expected. With this comes challenges as increased borrowing costs make securing finance and debt servicing difficult for some prospective buyers. As well as this, loan-to-value ratio rules remain a hurdle, and pre-approvals for low-deposit loans are still difficult to obtain. 
 

“Our August sales data shows that the national median price decreased by 5.9% annually to $800,000, and sales counts across the country declined by 18.3% — largely due to rising interest rates, inflation, and tighter lending criteria creating hesitancy amongst buyers,” Baird concludes.

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