Cooking the Books podcast: The pros and cons of taking a mortgage holiday

With recession looming, there are steps you can take to fight the panic about your money. Photo / file

Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking the Books podcast tackle a different money problem. Today, it's how the mortgage holidays actually work and whether you should consider one. Hosted by Frances Cook.

As jobs fall like dominoes around the country, many are worried about how they keep paying their bills.

Of course, the biggest bill for many of us is housing, and you can't really just stop paying it.

Or can you? The Government and banks have come together to make the unusual step of allowing mortgage holidays.

More than 10,000 New Zealanders applied for one in just the first few days.

But a mortgage holiday isn't your only option, it's just the most extreme one. And if you take the holiday when you don't need it, it could end up hurting instead of helping you.

For the latest podcast, I talked to Rupert Gough from Mortgage Lab. We discussed how the mortgage holiday works, how the different banks are bringing it in, and what other options you have that could be better for your future.

For the podcast, listen on the player at the top of the article.

If you have a question about this podcast, or question you'd like answered in the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on IHeartRadio, Apple podcasts app, or Spotify, to make sure you never miss an episode.

NeedToKnow3

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website