MT Newswires -Shutterstock <\/p>\n
Consumer sentiment in Australia slipped in January, mainly due to concerns over mortgages. <\/p>\n
The Westpac-Melbourne Institute Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 92.9 in January from 94.5 in the previous month, according to a Tuesday joint press release. <\/p>\n
For the second time since October 2024, all sub-indexes were below the reading of 100, which shows pessimists outweighing optimists in every component, Matthew Hassan, Westpac’s head of Australian macro-forecasting, said.<\/p>\n
Hopes for higher mortgage rates weakened as the Reserve Bank of Australia left rates steady at 3.6% in December 2025.<\/p>\n
The number of consumers surveyed to have been expecting mortgage rates to rise fell month on month to 64% from 68%, according to the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey.<\/p>\n
The property market is still trying to rebound as dwelling approvals are still below pre-pandemic levels. A recent survey from Westpac showed that total dwelling approval surged in November 2025 to 15.2% month on month and 20.2% year on year, but the Westpac-Melbourne Institute survey shows that homebuyer sentiment, which rose 4% to 89.6, was still way below the optimistic margin. <\/p>\n
Hassan said the survey showed that the expanded Home Guarantee scheme continues to aid homebuyers as sentiment inched 5.7% higher to 103.9 among 18-year-olds to 34-year-olds.<\/p>\n
“While confidence is still well above the extreme lows recorded during the protracted ‘cost of living’ crisis in 2022-2024, consumers are becoming more concerned about what 2026 may bring for family finances and the wider economy,” Hassan said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MT Newswires -Shutterstock Consumer sentiment in Australia slipped in January, mainly due to concerns over mortgages. The Westpac-Melbourne…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,95410,161573,53537,44,183,216985],"class_list":["post-410001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-consumer-sentiment-index","tag-matthew-hassan","tag-mortgage-rates","tag-news","tag-reserve-bank-of-australia","tag-westpac-melbourne-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410001","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=410001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}