{"id":756635,"date":"2026-06-24T06:16:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/756635\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T06:16:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:16:25","slug":"more-than-1-5-million-australians-struggle-with-their-mortgages-as-they-brace-for-potential-rate-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/756635\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 1.5 million Australians struggle with their mortgages as they brace for potential rate rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 1.5 million Australians are now considered at risk of mortgage stress as economic uncertainty pushes more households towards financial strain.<\/p>\n

Fresh Roy Morgan data has revealed 1,538,000 mortgage holders were classified as being “at risk” in the three months to May, an increase of 65,000 people in just one month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The figure\u00a0represents\u00a029 per cent of all mortgage holders and follows three Reserve Bank interest rate increases this year<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The research also found more than one million Australians are in an even more severe category.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A total of 1,084,000 mortgage holders are considered “extremely at risk”, meaning even interest-only repayments consume an unsustainable proportion of household income.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u00a0represents\u00a020.4 per cent of mortgage holders and sits well above the long-term average of 16.4 per cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The figures show the number of Australians under mortgage stress has risen by 100,000 people over the past year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The increase follows the Reserve Bank cutting interest rates in 2025 before they were lifted again in February, March and May this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latest findings add to concerns about household finances as borrowers wait for fresh inflation data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result is expected to play a significant role in\u00a0determining\u00a0whether the Reserve Bank considers another rate increase when it meets in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inflation eased to 4.2 per cent in April but remains well above the Reserve Bank’s target range of two to three per cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With that, Roy Morgan expects mortgage stress to continue rising over coming months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The market research company forecasts the number of borrowers at risk will increase to 1,553,000 in June and 1,562,000 in July as the impact of May’s rate rise continues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the Reserve Bank raises rates by another 25 basis points in August, Roy Morgan estimates the number of mortgage holders at risk would climb to 1.6 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That would\u00a0represent\u00a030.2 per cent of all borrowers and push Australia closer to levels recorded during the Global Financial Crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The highest mortgage stress level ever recorded by Roy Morgan was 35.6 per cent in 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While interest rates\u00a0remain\u00a0a major factor, Roy Morgan said employment\u00a0remains\u00a0the biggest determinant of whether households can keep up with repayments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The research noted that more than 3.2 million Australians are currently unemployed or underemployed, representing 20.2 per cent of the workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

The figures also come as demand for financial\u00a0assistance\u00a0continues to grow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The most recent Sky News Pulse \/ YouGov poll<\/a> showed 45 per cent of respondents ranked cost of living as the most important issue facing Australians, as inflation and interest rates eat into household budgets.<\/p>\n

This is four per cent higher than when Australians were asked the same question on February 26 and greatly exceeds the second-place priority of immigration – at just 10 per cent.<\/p>\n

The poll, which surveyed 1,471 voters between May 26 and June 2, also revealed that 70 per cent of Australians expect energy prices to surge over the coming year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1.5 million Australians are now considered at risk of mortgage stress as economic uncertainty pushes more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164,186,362042,115990,218917,16776,54634],"class_list":["post-756635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-household-borrowers","tag-mortgage-stress","tag-rate-rise","tag-reserve-bank","tag-roy-morgan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756635","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=756635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}