“Before Covid that was pretty much unprecedented. It would still be affordable, even for people who bought in the last year of so,” Kiernan says. “Yes, they would be highly leveraged, but the banks have been putting on some significantly higher test rates around their stress-testing.” Infometrics is picking the official cash rate to rise to 1.5 per cent by the end of 2023 from the current 0.25 per cent. Stuff What will this do to household finances? It will squeeze household spending, Kiernan says, but it won’t crash house prices. “Mortgage rate increases of this magnitude will not be enough to cause house price falls, even with residential consent numbers running at record high levels.”