<\/p>\n
Homeowners are staring down a further $90 repayment hike come February for a typical mortgage of $600,000, with those on higher levels to see greater costs.<\/p>\n
Millions of Australian mortgage holders could be hit with higher repayments within weeks, with the nation\u2019s biggest bank warning another interest rate rise is now most likely.<\/p>\n
The Commonwealth Bank dropped the bombshell on Tuesday in its December 2025 Wage and Labour Insights report, maintaining its prediction the Reserve Bank would hike rates at its February 3 meeting, despite a modest easing in wage growth.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CBA head of Australian economics Belinda Allen.<\/p>\n
CBA data shows annual wage growth slipped to 3.1 per cent in November, down from 3.2 per cent a month earlier \u2013 but the slowdown was not enough to shift the bank\u2019s outlook.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to see a February 2026 rate hike as the most likely scenario. Thereafter, we expect the cash rate to remain on hold at 3.85 per cent,\u201d the bank report said.<\/p>\n
Any rise would be kryptonite for millions of Aussie families, coming after 13 interest rate hikes since 2022 and landing just as school fees, summer power bills and Christmas credit card debts fall due.<\/p>\n
The hit to household budgets would be immediate with a typical $600,000 mortgage repayment jumping by $90 a month on a 0.25-point rise, Canstar analysis found.<\/p>\n
A $750,000 loan would increase by $112, while $1 million mortgages would face an extra $150 a month, it said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Consumer Price Index results by month, headline CPI % and Trimmed mean %. Source: Canstar.<\/p>\n
CBA head of Australian economics Belinda Allen said the outcome was far from locked in, given \u201ca lot was dependent on the outcome of the Q4 25 CPI data due on January 28\u201d.<\/p>\n
Inflation data released for November showed some cooling, with headline inflation easing from 3.8 per cent in October to 3.4 per cent \u2013 but analysts warned it remains well above the Reserve Bank\u2019s target.<\/p>\n
Canstar said \u201cit is still noticeably outside of the RBA\u2019s target band and a long way from the midpoint of 2.5 per cent\u201d.<\/p>\n
Fresh consumer confidence data suggests households are still optimistic, with the ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence index rising three points to 84.5 in the week to January 11.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
4 week average of consumer confidence by housing cohort. Source: ANZ<\/p>\n
But ANZ economist Sophia Angala said \u201cthis is the weakest new year\u2019s print in over 15 years\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said one spending measure had strengthened \u2013 the \u2018time to buy a major household item\u2019 subindex which hit its third-highest reading since the beginning of 2025, \u201cand only a little below the recent Black Friday peak\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Angala said weekly inflation expectations eased 0.2 percentage points last week.<\/p>\n
According to CBA data, the Australian economy added 23,000 jobs in December, while quarterly wage growth held steady at 0.8 per cent.<\/p>\n
Key dates to watch:<\/p>\n
January 22: Labour force data<\/p>\n
January 28: CPI inflation figures<\/p>\n
February 3: RBA interest rate decision<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Homeowners are staring down a further $90 repayment hike come February for a typical mortgage of $600,000, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-232327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}