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Housing market - house for sale - Source: ONE News -
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The number of households paying over $500 a week in mortgage payments dropped 3% in the year ending June 2009.
Statistics New Zealand's Household Economic figures released on Thursday show that 120,000 (25% of) New Zealand households paid over $500 a week for their mortgage compared with 135,700 in the same period the year before.
Statistics New Zealand says the decrease is partly due to lower mortgage rates during the period.
During the 12 months, the Reserve Bank slashed its official cash rate from 8.0% to 2.5% as the recession gripped the economy, encouraging banks to drop their home loan rates.
The mean weekly mortgage payments were highest in the Auckland region, at $414 per week, followed by Wellington at $340 a week, and Canterbury at $318 a week.
In the rest of the North Island median mortgage payments were $262 a week, and for the rest of the South Island were $219 a week.
Statistics New Zealand says the range in mortgage payments reflects the different house prices in each region.
Data also showed that overall average mean and median weekly household expenditure on housing costs were the same as the year before at $231 and $156 respectively.
At 34.5%, mortgage interest payments made up the highest
proportion of total housing costs, followed by property and ground
rent at 33.9%.
