WELLINGTON, July 7: New Zealand’s hot housing market continues to pose a risk to the nation’s financial stability and the central bank is looking to further tighten mortgage lending rules. “Growing imbalances in the housing market require policy action on a number of fronts,” said Deputy Governor Grant Spencer said on Thursday in a speech published on the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s web site. New Zealand’s housing prices, spurred by low interest rates, high levels of immigration and supply shortages, are the second fastest-growing in the world after Qatar, according to the International Monetary Fund. (AGENCIES)
^^