official cash rate

PHOTO: NZ’s OCR

Owning a home, or hoping to, just got more expensive after the Reserve Bank hiked the official cash rate by a quarter of a percent on Wednesday – the first increase in seven years.

Charlie Nicholls and her husband have returned home from 11 years in Australia.

They’re keen to buy a house, but saving a 20 percent deposit to do so is almost impossible.

“I think a really easy way to sum this up is unattainable,” she told Newshub.

OCR

OCR raised to 0.50 percent – RESERVE BANK

And it’s only getting harder with interest rates officially on the up.

“If we had a mortgage of a million dollars, a 1 percent increase could be anywhere up to $1000 more in mortgage repayments every month,” she said.

The Reserve Bank increased the wholesale cash rate by 25 basis points to 0.5 percent on Wednesday.

Immediately New Zealand’s biggest bank ANZ hiked its rates too, adding 15 basis points to all floating home loan rates.

That’ll add an extra $40 a month to a $350,000 mortgage.

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