In 2021, among the main banks, the most aggressive rate setter (the bank with the lowest rates) has been ASB
New Zealand’s largest economic sector – residential real estate – had a banner year in 2021. Our extension of the RBNZ M10 series suggests the value of all housing in the country could have reached $1.675 tln by the end of 2021, or 4.8 times larger than our annual economic activity as measured by GDP. (In 2020 it was 4.3x, in 2019 it was 3.7x.)
For more than a decade since the availability of the data starting in 1990, housing was valued at about 2x annual economic activity. It got its first spurt higher as a consequence of the Clark/Cullen 39% top tax rate, then settling in to about 3x GDP. A new frenzy started about a decade later which took it to about 4x GDP. And now we look to be in yet another push higher, pushing on towards 5x annual economic activity. Another 39% tax rate is now in place, and the shelter real estate gains provide is clearly attractive.
And the funding of all this and its growth didn’t miss a beat during all the pandemic hurdles of the past year, even the past two years. …