June 7, 2016
By Tamsyn Parker
New Zealand is sitting (click here) on a half-a-trillion-dollar debt bomb and Kiwis are increasingly treating their houses like cash machines, piling on the debt as they watch the value of their properties soar.
By Tamsyn Parker
New Zealand is sitting (click here) on a half-a-trillion-dollar debt bomb and Kiwis are increasingly treating their houses like cash machines, piling on the debt as they watch the value of their properties soar.
Reserve Bank figures show household debt, excluding investment property, has risen 23 per cent in the past five years to $163.4 billion. Incomes have risen only 11.5 per cent.
Households are now carrying a debt level that is equivalent to 162 per cent of their annual disposable income - higher than the level reached before the global financial crisis...
