{"id":635267,"date":"2026-10-19T12:46:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T12:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/635267\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T12:46:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T12:46:19","slug":"first-time-buyers-face-mortgage-payments-above-rent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/635267\/","title":{"rendered":"First-time buyers face mortgage payments above rent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                        12:05 AM, 19th October 2026, 14 hours ago                                            <\/p>\n<p>                                <img loading=\"lazy\" data-lazyloaded=\"1\" width=\"768\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Rent-vs-Mortgage_-First-Time-Buyer-Costs-768x768.png\" class=\"w-full h-auto wp-post-image\" alt=\"Rent and mortgage price tags above two homes, illustrating higher monthly mortgage costs for first-time buyers.\" decoding=\"async\"  data- title=\"First-time buyers face mortgage payments above rent\"\/>                            <\/p>\n<p>More than half of tenants who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.property118.com\/first-time-buyers-rethink-careers-to-afford-homes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">bought their first home<\/a> in September were paying a mortgage that was higher than the rent they had been paying, research reveals.<\/p>\n<p>For these buyers, getting the keys no longer brought the immediate monthly saving that most could expect before 2022.<\/p>\n<p>Hamptons\u2019 analysis of Connells Group data found that 56% paid more after buying, the highest proportion in at least a decade.<\/p>\n<p>As recently as July, fewer than half faced an increase in their monthly payments.<\/p>\n<p>Mortgage costs overtake rent<\/p>\n<p>Hamptons\u2019 head of research, Aneisha Beveridge, said: \u201cWhen interest rates were low, the financial case for tenants to buy as soon as they could was fairly straightforward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSaving a deposit was difficult, but buying usually brought an immediate fall in monthly housing costs, alongside the chance to fix those costs for longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She added: \u201cHigher mortgage rates have turned that equation on its head.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday, more than half of renters who buy are taking on a higher monthly payment than the rent they have left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Deposits shape mortgage payments<\/p>\n<p>First-time buyers whose mortgage payments exceeded their previous rent had an average deposit of 9%, compared with 17% among those paying less after buying.<\/p>\n<p>Age also made a difference, with buyers in their 40s more likely to face higher monthly payments than younger purchasers.<\/p>\n<p>Hamptons partly attributed this to older buyers choosing larger homes and taking shorter mortgage terms, averaging 27 years against 34 years for buyers in their 20s.<\/p>\n<p>Among that younger group, fewer than half paid more on their mortgage than they had previously paid in rent.<\/p>\n<p>New let rents rise<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, annual growth in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hamptons.co.uk\/research\/rental-index-data#\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">newly agreed rents<\/a> across Great Britain accelerated for the tenth consecutive month, reaching 2.7% in September, its fastest pace since November 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The average monthly rent stood at \u00a31,433, with both the South East and South West recording annual increases above 4% for the first time in two years.<\/p>\n<p>Among existing tenants whose rent went up, the average increase was 5.6%, unchanged from August.<\/p>\n<p>However, across all tenants, including those whose payments stayed the same, annual rent growth slowed to 1.9%, down from 3.9% a year earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"12:05 AM, 19th October 2026, 14 hours ago More than half of tenants who bought their first home&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-635267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635267","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=635267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}