Restrictions aimed at cooling the Auckland housing market haven't had a lasting effect, the head of Westpac New Zealand says.
Westpac chief executive David McLean says prices are on the move, just six months after the Reserve Bank imposed additional lending limits, requiring at least a 30 percent deposit of investors buying a house in Auckland.
Homes at the Waimahia development in Weymouth in Auckland. Photo: RNZ / Kim Baker Wilson
Mr McLean said the higher prices weren't putting would-be buyers off, and the number of people saving for a home was going up.
"Following the regulations brought in in 2015 there was a slow down in the Auckland housing market, but as we've seen regulatory slow downs - imposed slow downs - have not lasted, and so the fundamental supply and demand imbalance keeps driving prices up."
Mr McLean said the bank's deposits were on the rise, up by seven percent to $55 billion in the six months to March, compared with the same period a year earlier.
