{"id":232306,"date":"2025-10-22T11:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232306\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T11:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:14:11","slug":"mortgage-pain-is-easing-but-grocery-bills-are-rising-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/232306\/","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage pain is easing, but grocery bills are rising"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHowever, pockets of weakness will remain in regions where housing market and employment conditions lag the rest of the country, with parts of Melbourne a notable area of risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Melbourne\u2019s western and north-western suburbs, despite falls in delinquency rates, remain above the national and Victorian averages. These areas have higher unemployment rates than other parts of Melbourne.<\/p>\n

The fear of unemployment, after recent figures showed the nation\u2019s jobless rate climbing to its highest level since the pandemic<\/a>, is now feeding into consumer stress.<\/p>\n

The NAB\u2019s quarterly consumer sentiment survey, released on Wednesday, showed a rise in shopper stress after previously reaching a two-year low due to falling inflation.<\/p>\n

Cost-of-living issues continue to be the main concern for shoppers, largely due to elevated electricity and grocery prices, but unemployment and job security is starting to emerge as a worry. More than a third of people surveyed expect the jobless rate to climb over the next year.<\/p>\n

Almost three-quarters of people reported that prices for utilities and groceries had increased over the past three months, with most not expecting any respite over the year ahead.<\/p>\n

NAB chief economist Sally Auld said that while consumer stress had risen, it was still below its long-term average.<\/p>\n

\"NAB\u2019s<\/p>\n

NAB\u2019s Sally Auld says despite rising consumer stress it remains below the long-term average.Credit: Wolter Peeters<\/p>\n

She said that although Australian shoppers were still mindful about where they spent their money, with 28 per cent changing to less expensive options, some people were opening their wallets.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers were somewhat less restrained in the September quarter,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis easing allowed households to spend more, though spending growth was concentrated in specific areas, suggesting a continued focus on value and convenience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fall in interest rates this year has contributed to a sharp fall in consumer stress caused by mortgage repayments.<\/p>\n

Whether borrowers get further relief at the Reserve Bank\u2019s last two meetings of the year will largely be determined by next week\u2019s September quarter inflation figures.<\/p>\n

Commonwealth Bank economist Trent Saunders said those figures were likely to show headline inflation pushed to 3 per cent over the past months, while the closely watched underlying measure will remain steady at 2.7 per cent.<\/p>\n

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He said it was unlikely the Reserve would cut further until it had clear evidence that inflation was on its way to the midpoint of the bank\u2019s 2-3 per cent target band.<\/p>\n

But the September jobs report, which showed an unexpected rise in unemployment, could force the bank\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe latest labour force data mean that the decision to hold or cut in November may not be clear-cut,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the increase in unemployment in September, an unexpectedly soft September quarter inflation print could see the RBA cut in November.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHowever, pockets of weakness will remain in regions where housing market and employment conditions lag the rest of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-232306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}