Mike's Minute: We need to understand debt better

There is a growing idea in economic circles in America that young people might never own anything.

It's based on the recent news that a new car average price cracked $50,000 for the first time.

It was added to by Trump's idea that we have 50-year mortgages.

Roger Partridge: The hidden cost of excessive regulation

Every time New Zealanders apply for a mortgage or business loan, they pay the price for the Reserve Bank’s controversial 2019 bank capital decision to increase capital requirements for major banks by almost 100%.

The decision made our banks much more heavily capitalised than most of their international peers. This extreme conservatism targeted a novel “one-in-200-year” risk of bank failure. The standard benchmark is one-in-100-years.

Claire Matthews: Will the next Reserve Bank governor relax capital requirements for banks?....

Calculated risk: will the next Reserve Bank governor relax capital requirements for banks?

Adrian Orr has so far not spoken about the reasons for his recent and unexpected resignation as Reserve Bank governor, but the sudden departure caused understandable speculation.

One suggestion has been that Orr was at odds with the government over his requirement that the Australian-owned New Zealand banks hold high levels of capital compared to other countries.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Grant has opened the money hose

Lock it in; it looks like a very good chance that your mortgage rate is going up, because Grant opened the money hose too much yesterday.

The economists at almost every one of our big retail banks have come out in the last 24 hours now predicting a bigger hike in the OCR either next week when Adrian Orr resets it, or in July when he comes back for round two.

BNZ says the Budget is the straw that broke the camel’s back re the official cash rate.

Mike Hosking: We buy houses on emotion, not logic

The most common home loan these days is one that lasts for 30 years.

Think about it, chances are it's longer than you have been alive, given many of them go to first home buyers. If you're later in life, it could be longer than you have left on Earth.

That’s a lot of time owing a lot of money.

57 percent of mortgages this year so far are for 30 years. 66 percent of them in are Auckland, which shoots up to 83 percent if you're a first home buyer.

The trouble with 30-year loans is that you pay a fortune for them. The greatest gift a bank could give you is to print a spreadsheet of all your payments over 30 years and to split them into columns.