New residential mortgage lending by borrower type - C31

The data: coverage, periodicity, and timeliness

Coverage characteristics

Registered banks provide data on new residential mortgage lending commitments during a reference month with a breakdown by loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) and borrower type. Borrowers are classified as first home buyers, other owner-occupiers, investor or those borrowing for business purposes.

Periodicity

Monthly

Timeliness

Data is published 18 working days after the end of the reference month.

Access by the public

Statistics release calendar

The Statistics Release Calendar provides a long-term plan of scheduled releases. It is updated and released on the first working day of the month.

View the Statistics Release Calendar

Integrity

Dissemination of terms and conditions under which official statistics are produced, including confidentiality of individual responses

Data is collected under Section 36 of The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989 (The Act).

Read the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand publishes only aggregated data. Individual institutional data is confidential.

Provision of information about revisions and advance notice of major changes in methodology

Provisional data are italicised. Data are deemed provisional when a series is under review. New data, or revised data, are in bold font. This applies to the summary table only and not excel files. Revisions are generally published when the table is next due to be updated and released. Should revisions need to be made more promptly, a special note is posted on the website. Any major changes in methodology will be posted as a special note.

Quality

Dissemination of statistics that support statistical cross-check and provide assurance of reasonableness

Data on new residential mortgage lending commitments by loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) is published in C30.

Lending ($ millions)

Total lending

Total value of monthly committed residential mortgage loans, which are finalised offers to customers to provide mortgage loans or to increase the loan value of an existing mortgage loan, as evidenced by the loan documents provided to the borrower.

Higher than 80% LVR lending

Monthly value of committed residential mortgage lending, where the loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) is above 80%.

Less than or equal to 80% LVR lending

Monthly value of committed residential mortgage lending, where the loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) is 80% or below.

Higher than 70% LVR lending

Monthly value of committed residential mortgage lending, where the loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) is above 70%. This data is published for investors only.

Less than or equal to 70% LVR lending

Monthly value of committed residential mortgage lending, where the loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) is 70% or below. This data is published for investors only.

Borrowers (number)

Total borrowers

Total number of monthly committed residential mortgage loans, which are finalised offers to customers to provide mortgage loans or to increase the loan value of an existing mortgage loan, as evidenced by the loan documents provided to the borrower.

Higher than 80% LVR borrowers

Monthly number of committed residential mortgage loans, where the loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) is above 80%.

Less than or equal to 80% LVR borrowers

Monthly number of committed residential mortgage loans, where the loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) is 80% or below.

Higher than 70% LVR borrowers

Monthly number of committed residential mortgage loans, where the loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) is above 70%. This data is published for investors only.

Less than or equal to 70% LVR borrowers

Monthly number of committed residential mortgage loans, where the loan-to-valuation ratio (LVR) is 70% or below. This data is published for investors only.

Borrower type

First home buyer

A first home buyer is a borrower entering the home ownership market in New Zealand for the first time. In the case of more than one borrowing parties to a loan, borrowers are classified as first home buyers only if none of the borrowing parties have previously drawn down on housing finance for owner occupation. If the borrower, or at least one borrowing party, has previously drawn down on housing finance for owner occupation they are classified as "other Owner Occupier".

Other owner occupier

Other owner occupiers are borrowers (other than first home buyers) who own or are in the process of buying or building the house or flat they will live in. An owner can occupy more than one property e.g. a family home and a holiday home.

Investor

Investors are entities or persons borrowing for the purpose of building or purchasing residential property to rent. The borrower is securing the loan on a non owner occupied property i.e. the borrower does not intend to live in the property for which they are seeking finance.

Business purposes

These commitments are made to borrowers in the form of a residential mortgage loan but are intended for business purposes.

Reclassification for “Borrower Type” statistics

In October 2018, a major bank made a reclassification to their ‘commitments use’ reporting. This resulted in a reclassification from “investor” to “other owner occupied”. The series now show a lower amount of “investor” purpose loans from October 2018 onwards. This impacts both the C31 and C32 tables.

Please note that this data forms part of statistical reporting to the Reserve Bank and does not relate to LVR compliance, which uses a different, collateral-based definition of investment property (see BS19 and BS2A/B). Therefore, this reclassification does not impact compliance with the Reserve Bank’s speed limits.

If you have any questions please contact stats-info@rbnz.govt.nz.

29 January 2018