kingdragonfly:mattwnz: IMO houses are basically being used as a vehicle for banks, to lend more and more freshly printed money at the moment.
I know it's pedantic, but most money is created by banks, not printed.
When a bank loans a million dollars that million is instantly created, almost like there's a poof of smoke and a pile of money appears.
The bank doesn't have money in the vault waiting to be spent, to cover every loan made. Hence the need for bank stress tests.
Lets just hope we don't have something similar to the US subprime mortgage crisis, as it is often an external shock, like covid, that can start a knockon effect. The GFC wasn't that long ago, and some NZs lost billions when finance companies collapse.