{"id":414009,"date":"2026-01-15T06:17:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/414009\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T06:17:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:17:21","slug":"aussies-face-new-wave-of-mortgage-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/414009\/","title":{"rendered":"Aussies face new wave of mortgage stress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Roy Morgan reports that mortgage stress has fallen to its lowest level since January 2023, following the Reserve Bank of Australia\u2019s (RBA) three 25 bp rate cuts.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Roy-Morgan-mortgage-stress.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"475\" alt=\"Roy Morgan mortgage stress\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Roy Morgan classified 24.7% of mortgage holders as \u2018At Risk\u2019 of\u2019 mortgage stress\u2019 in the three months ending November 2025, a 3.2% decrease from August 2025 and significantly below the recent peak of 30.3% in June 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, 442,000 more Australians were classified as \u2018At Risk\u2019 of mortgage stress three years after interest rate hikes began, which saw the official cash rate rise from 0.1% to 4.35% between November 2023 and February 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Roy Morgan\u2019s results are supported by Cotality\u2019s latest housing affordability report, which showed that median mortgage repayments as a share of median household income fell from a high of 47.1% in the September quarter of 2024 to 45.0% in the September quarter of 2025:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Mortgage-affordabilitty.png\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>However, the good news for mortgage holders ends here.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Most economists expect the RBA to lift the official cash rate one or two times in 2026, taking the cash rate to either 3.85% or 4.10%.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/RBA-rate-tracker.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"422\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"RBA rate tracker\"\/><\/p>\n<p>This view was supported by the release this week of the Australian Bureau of Statistics\u2019 household spending indicator for November, which reported strong discretionary spending by consumers.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/HSI-November.png\" width=\"468\" height=\"406\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"HSI - November\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/HSI-Discretionary-vs-non-discretionary.png\" width=\"469\" height=\"402\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"HSI by category\"\/><\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, CBA reported that wage growth, as measured by customer accounts, has softened, suggesting that strong consumer demand is unlikely to be maintained:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/CBA-wage-tracker-1.png\" width=\"577\" height=\"660\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"CBA wage insights\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Either way, the risks for interest rates are tilted to the upside, even though I lean toward the RBA keeping rates on hold.<\/p>\n<p>Roy Morgan estimates that a single 25 bp rise in the official cash rate would push another 41,000 Australian households into potential mortgage stress and the percentage of \u201cAt risk\u201d mortgage holders to 25.5%:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Mortgage-stress-test.png\" width=\"920\" height=\"736\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>SQM Research, alongside other forecasters, also expects robust home prices to experience solid growth in 2026, even without further rate cuts:<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SQM-property-price-projection-1.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"382\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"SQM property projections\"\/><\/p>\n<p>If home values continue to climb faster than income growth without offsetting interest rate reductions, the ratio of mortgage payments to income will inevitably rise.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>It also means that Australian mortgage stress will increase.<\/p>\n<p>Mortgage stress would obviously rise further still if home prices and mortgage rates rose in tandem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roy Morgan reports that mortgage stress has fallen to its lowest level since January 2023, following the Reserve&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":{"0":"post-414009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414009","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=414009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}