{"id":57557,"date":"2025-08-10T11:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T11:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/57557\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T11:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T11:54:11","slug":"homebuyers-hit-pause-ahead-of-rba-rate-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/57557\/","title":{"rendered":"Homebuyers hit pause ahead of RBA rate cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After months of strong results, Australia\u2019s auction market has experienced a loss of momentum alongside a stalling of price growth.<\/p>\n<p>Last week\u2019s final auction clearance rate fell to 67.1%, the lowest clearance rate in six weeks.\u00a0PropTrack also recorded slower price growth over the July quarter:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Capital-city-auctions-vs-prices.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"485\" alt=\"AUction clearances versus prices\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Cotality\u2019s preliminary auction results for this weekend indicate a pause among buyers.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Across the combined capital cities, the preliminary auction clearance rate fell to 71.7%, down from 72.3% a week ago, which ended up producing the softest final result in six weeks.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Preliminary-clearance-rates-1.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"320\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Preliminary auction results\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Cotality<\/p>\n<p>While the preliminary capital city clearance rate has held above the 70% mark for nine weeks running, the loss of momentum is clear.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Melbourne\u2019s preliminary clearance rate was 70.9% this weekend, the 15th consecutive week above 70%, but the lowest in four weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Sydney\u2019s preliminary clearance rate was stronger at 74.3%, the ninth consecutive week above 70%. However, it was lower than the 74.9% recorded a week ago.<\/p>\n<p>Homebuyers might be waiting for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to cut rates before taking the plunge.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Financial markets and virtually all economists expect the RBA to cut the official cash rate by 0.25% at this week\u2019s monetary policy meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Five weeks ago, the RBA shocked the market by keeping rates on hold at its July meeting. However, the flow has since supported further monetary easing.<\/p>\n<p>The all-important Q2 2025 CPI report confirmed that the disinflation impulse in the Australian economy continued in the June quarter.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Trimmed-mean-inflation-vs-RBA.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"559\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Inflation vs RBA\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The other key piece of data was the June labour force release, which came in soft. The national unemployment rate came in above the RBA\u2019s forecasts from May at 4.3%.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/RBA-unemployment-rate-vs-RBA.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"532\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Unemployment vs RBA\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Financial markets have priced in an additional two rate cuts by mid-2026, which will stimulate buyer demand and home prices.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/RBA-rate-tracker-3.png\" width=\"660\" height=\"387\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"RBA rate tracker\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The federal and state governments have also launched demand-side policies aimed at increasing homebuyer demand and thus prices.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>These policies include the Albanese government\u2019s 5% deposit scheme for first-time homebuyers, the expansion of the Help-to-Buy shared equity scheme, changes to lending rules that exempt student debts from loan serviceability assessments, and state-specific policies such as the generous shared equity scheme announced in the most recent Queensland budget.<\/p>\n<p>Lower borrowing rates and stimulatory policies will increase demand and prices, ultimately worsening housing affordability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After months of strong results, Australia\u2019s auction market has experienced a loss of momentum alongside a stalling of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-57557","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\/57557","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=57557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}