{"id":544636,"date":"2026-07-26T10:20:38","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T10:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/544636\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T10:20:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T10:20:38","slug":"mortgage-stress-climbs-to-two-year-high-after-rba-rate-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/544636\/","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage stress climbs to two-year high after RBA rate rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

The RBA held rates steady<\/a> at its mid-June meeting after lifting them three times in 2026 \u2014 in February, March, and May \u2014 by a combined 0.75 percentage points. Those increases reversed two cuts made in 2025 and pushed the cash rate 0.5 percentage points above its level of 3.85% in June 2025, contributing to a rise in at-risk mortgage holders of 115,000 year-on-year.<\/p>\n

The proportion classified as “extremely at risk” \u2014 those for whom even interest-only repayments exceed a set threshold of household income \u2014 stood at 20.7%, or almost 1.1 million\u00a0people. Roy Morgan notes the long-term average for this measure over the past two decades is 16.4%.\u00a0The all-time high of 35.6% was recorded in May 2008 during the Global Financial Crisis.<\/p>\n

Mortgage stress \u2013 % of owner-occupied mortgage holders<\/p>\n

Rolling 3-month average, April 2007 \u2013 June 2026<\/p>\n

At risk Extremely at risk <\/p>\n

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), average interviews per 3-month period April 2007 \u2013 June 2026, n=2,897. Base: Australians 14+ with owner-occupied home loan.<\/p>\n


\nRoy Morgan has modelled the potential effect of additional rate rises at the RBA’s August and September meetings. If the cash rate rises to 4.6% in August, the share of at-risk mortgage holders would climb to 31.2%, or 1.65 million people. A further rise to 4.85% in September would push the figure to 31.4%, equivalent to 1.67 million\u00a0\u2014 a level not seen since December 2008.<\/p>\n

Mortgage risk projections based on interest rate increases in August and September 2026<\/p>\n

% of owner-occupied mortgage holders at risk<\/p>\n

At risk Increase in mortgage holders <\/p>\n

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), April 2026 \u2013 June 2026, n=3,504. Base: Australians 14+ with owner-occupied home loan.<\/p>\n


\nThe RBA’s tightening cycle this year was driven by a surge in inflation, with the official annual rate rising from 1.9% in the year to June 2025 to 4.6% in the year to March 2026. More recent data shows some easing, with the Consumer Price Index for the 12 months to May 2026 falling to 4%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Michele“Mortgage stress is just one indicator of the pressure Australians are under,” said Michele Levine (pictured right), chief executive of\u00a0Roy Morgan.\u00a0“Mortgage stress is up five months in a row, interest rates have increased three times already this year, housing prices are coming down in key markets<\/a>, and the Australian workforce has contracted from earlier this year.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The RBA held rates steady at its mid-June meeting after lifting them three times in 2026 \u2014 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,47468,111,139,69,163058,267676],"class_list":["post-544636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-mortgage-stress","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rate-rise","tag-rba-rate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544636","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=544636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}