Confidence among mortgage holders has continued to sink, but homeowners have been handed a temporary reprieve from further repayment rises with the Reserve Bank keeping interest rates on hold.
Consumer confidence for the cohort fell 2.1 points to 70.5 points, putting mortgage holders 7.2 points below renters and those who own a home outright in ANZ and Roy Morgan’s weekly index.
The fastest round of policy tightening in decades has already added hundreds of dollars to mortgage repayments.
Overall, consumers regained some confidence ahead of the RBA’s finely balanced decision on Tuesday to keep the cash rate unchanged at 3.6 per cent.
Economists were divided in the lead-up to the central bank’s rates call, with another quarter percentage point hike firmly on the table.
Despite the pause, the RBA warned it might need to hike again if incoming data suggests more needed to be done to tame inflation.
Overall, there was a modest 1.6-point uptick in consumer confidence, but the monthly index remains stubbornly in depressed territory and has returned a below-80 point result for the fifth week in a row.
Three of the five confidence subindices rose, including “current economic conditions” lifting 4.6 points, “future economic conditions” lifting three points and “future financial conditions” lifting 3.1 points.
Despite the overall index improvement, ANZ senior economist Adelaide Timbrell said confidence in financial conditions, particularly current financial conditions, was trending lower than it had been during the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The outlook for mortgage holders is bleak but higher interest rates are also making it harder for first-time purchasers to buy without falling into mortgage stress.
New Canstar analysis shows the average would-be solo home owner needs to earn $165,695 a year to buy a home without falling into mortgage stress.
The average annual earnings for a full-time worker are $94,000.
The research explored how much buyers needed to earn to afford a house with a 20 per cent deposit but without contributing 30 per cent or more of their after-tax income towards repayments, which is how mortgage stress is defined.
Canstar money expert Effie Zahos said the return to higher home prices, combined with the possibility of more interest rate hikes, could push home ownership even further out of reach for single-income earners.
© AAP 2023
