OCR Held

The Reserve Bank today left the Official Cash Rate (OCR) unchanged at 2.5 percent.

A warning shot was fired across the housing market with… “The extent of the monetary policy response will depend largely on the degree to which the growing momentum in the housing market and construction sector spills over into inflation pressures.”

“Monetary policy response” means movements in the OCR, a direct influence on your Floating or Variable home loan interest rate.

Yesterday afternoon ANZ Bank announced an increase in 2,3,4 and 5 year fixed interest rates effective today. This is the 2nd announcement of increases in these fixed interest rate terms in less than a month.

5 years fixed goes to 6.60% which is now quite some distance from a discounted floating rate. I wonder how many will opt for an immediate cost increase of a move off floating to the 5 year fixed rate as a trade off for the certainty of long term borrowing costs….

2 years fixed gets tweaked 15 basis points to 5.65%.