{"id":506960,"date":"2026-07-02T23:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T23:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/506960\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T23:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T23:12:16","slug":"mortgage-interest-rates-financial-experts-reveal-mistake-homeowners-are-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/506960\/","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage interest rates: Financial experts reveal mistake homeowners are making"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hayward said split mortgage options effectively give homeowners a \u201cdiversified interest rate\u201d over the terms they\u2019re looking at.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019re trying to achieve is the best long-term average return over the term of your loan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayward said there was stability in longer-term rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trade-off is in price,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good thing about a longer-term fixed rate \u2026 it gives them that surety and confidence that that\u2019s what they\u2019re going to be paying for that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people have a mixture between fixed and floating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayward said after Covid there were one- and two-year rates running at about 2.39% but \u201chardly anybody\u201d took the five-year fix at 2.99%.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou actually saw this really fantastic five-year rate at that time, which was brilliant for people, but they\u2019re battling with that psychology of thinking \u2018I\u2019ve got to get everything cheaper\u2019 rather than a strategy around \u2018what am I trying to achieve\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week, ASB<\/a> cut its three- to five-year rates by between 20 and 30 basis points (bps).<\/p>\n

However, it also hiked its shorter lending options.<\/p>\n

The move followed the country\u2019s largest bank, ANZ<\/a>, cutting its one-, two- and three-year mortgage rates.<\/p>\n

Its special home loan rates fell by 14bps to 4.65% for one year and by 20bps for two- and three-year fixed mortgages to 5.29% and 5.49%.<\/p>\n

Westpac<\/a> also cut its three- to five-year rates by between 20-30bps.<\/p>\n

Cameron Marcroft, senior mortgage adviser at Loan Market Central, said recent drops in mortgage rates largely came off the back of the Trump-Iran peace deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe peace deal impacted the swap rates. When swap rates moved, there\u2019s been a little bit more margin for the banks, so there was a reduction in there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe banks are very hungry for business, and so there was a little bit of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re coming out with some pretty good offers for people that are wanting mortgages right now with cash contributions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcroft said one- and two-year home loan rates were still the most popular.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two-year is below 5%, which is an attractive rate for stability.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the three-year rate is historically \u201cvery good\u201d going back 15-20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut us Kiwis can really only remember our low twos at the moment, so probably see it as a high rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcroft said that in terms of interest-rate movements, it was a bit \u201cmonth by month\u201d at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think it\u2019s better off to grab the rate on offer today because there\u2019s probably likely movement upwards to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cameron Smith is an Auckland-based business reporter. He joined the Herald in 2015 and has covered business and sports. He reports on topics such as retail, small business, the workplace and macroeconomics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hayward said split mortgage options effectively give homeowners a \u201cdiversified interest rate\u201d over the terms they\u2019re looking at.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[192,138,6932,68643,14134,5658,1644,14421,12469,1446,28166,16400,111,139,1536,69,5908,19257,7676,252762,21501,2249,165,65508,4518,1533],"class_list":["post-506960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-are","tag-business","tag-cash","tag-closely","tag-decision","tag-experts","tag-financial","tag-homeowners","tag-interest","tag-making","tag-mistake","tag-mortgage","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-next","tag-nz","tag-official","tag-rate","tag-rates","tag-refix","tag-reveal","tag-soon","tag-their","tag-watching","tag-weeks","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}