While pressure on affordability went up alongside rising house prices in November, interest rates remain on hold and banks are fighting for their market share of mortgages, the Roost home loan affordability report for November says.
Affordability is based on the take-home pay of a person earning the median income in the 30-34 year age group servicing an 80% mortgage on the national median selling price.
Nationally, for November, national house prices rose almost 2% to a record of $497,840, with the Central Otago Lakes region up 12% at almost $750,000, data from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand revealed.
For November, the mortgage repayment would be 65.6% of the person's take-home pay, up from 61.5% in November last year, and 55.6% the year before.
Roost Mortgage Brokers spokesperson Ele Thomson said the most recent increased cost of servicing a mortgage was driven by the increase in the national median home selling price in November.
''The sharp jump in house prices in November will make life more difficult for first home buyers, but the good news is that competition between banks for mortgage business is intense,'' Ms Thomson said.
The biggest drop in affordability was in central Auckland. This is within the boundaries of the former Auckland City Council, where the amount of take-home pay required to service an 80% mortgage jumped from 97.1% in October to 107.9% in November.
Other areas with particularly big decreases in affordability were Queenstown, where the amount of take-home pay required to service a mortgage increased from 86.7% to 93.3%, and in New Plymouth where the increase was from 50.6% to 55.4%, she said.
While Dunedin's affordability also worsened, it stood at 44.6% of the take-home pay, compared with Queenstown's 93.3% of take-home pay.
The seven districts which went against the trend of rising affordability, where housing affordability improved slightly in November compared with October, were Whangarei, Rotorua, Gisborne, Palmerston North, Wellington City, Kapiti, and Timaru.
Ms Thomson said the survey also showed that although affordability also declined for first home buyers during November, buying a home should be within their reach everywhere except Auckland, ''where it could be significantly out of their reach''.
She said mortgage brokers were reporting ''some exceptionally good financing deals'' being offered by the banks at present, which could help first home buyers get into the home they wanted.
