Under pressure: where interest rate rises are starting to bite
It’s a tale of two residential rings as some parts of the country’s capitals bear the brunt
2 min
There’s no end in sight for mortgage holder pain, with some parts of the country set for a worse time than others, new analysis suggests.
While economists from the major banks are predicting rates to rise at least another 25 basis points from the current level of 4.1 percent to 4.35 percent, data from CoreLogic reveals it’s the outer suburbs of the country’s capitals most likely to feel the pressure.
Head of research at CoreLogic, Eliza Owen, said repayments on a $750,000 loan have risen by about $1,550 per month since rate hikes began in May 2022, forcing many households to dig deep.
“Households in some regions will feel the pinch more than others,” Ms Owen said.
“The number of mortgaged, owner occupier households are generally highest in outer regions of major cities, particularly Melbourne.
“Looking at SA3 regional boundaries at the time of the 2021 Census, the highest number of mortgaged owner occupiers were in Wyndham (43,807, or around 48 percent of households), Casey –South (38,614, or 56.2 percent of households), and Wanneroo in Perth (38,320, or 54 percent of households).”
Adding further pressure on the ability of mortgage holders in those areas to service their loans, 16 of the 25 regions identified had a weekly median income lower than that of their greater capital city.
Ms Owen noted that Blacktown – North has seen a steady rise in the number of listings in the past four weeks, while the amount of time on the market has been increasing since February. This points to more available properties on the market and greater uncertainty amongst would-be buyers.
Other parts of the market, such as mining towns and inner city areas where there are fewer owner occupier mortgages, may also be under stress, Ms Owen said. Capital gains in some areas have also clouded the impact of higher interest rates on investment mortgage holders.
“It is noticeable that new listings volumes are climbing in some of these markets, where the national trend is seeing a seasonal slowdown,” she said. “This could make it more difficult for recent buyers to make a capital gain if they are struggling to meet mortgage repayments.”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
The Republican nominee says it would help bring down home prices, though these buyers account for a fraction of U.S. home sales
3 min
Former President Donald Trump said he would ban undocumented immigrants from obtaining home mortgages, a move he indicated would help ease home prices even though these buyers account for a tiny fraction of U.S. home sales.
Home loans to undocumented people living in the U.S. are legal but they aren’t especially common. Between 5,000 and 6,000 mortgages of this kind were issued last year, according to estimates from researchers at the Urban Institute in Washington.
Overall, lenders issued more than 3.4 million mortgages to all home purchasers in 2023, federal government data show.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, made his comments Thursday during a policy speech to the Economic Club of New York in Manhattan.
Housing remains a top economic issue for voters during this presidential election. Rent and home prices grew at historic rates during the pandemic and mortgage rates climbed to levels not seen in more than two decades. A July Wall Street Journal poll showed that voters rank housing as their second-biggest inflation concern after groceries.
Both major candidates for the 2024 presidential election have made appeals to voters on housing during recent campaign stops, though the issue has so far featured more prominently in Vice President Kamala Harris ’s campaign.
Trump has blamed immigrants for many of the nation’s woes, including crime and unemployment. Now, he is pointing to immigrants as a cause of the nation’s housing-affordability crisis. Yet some affordable-housing advocates and real-estate professionals said Trump’s mortgage proposal would fail to bring relief to priced-out home buyers.
“It’s unfortunate that given the significant housing affordability crisis that is widely acknowledged across most partisan lines, we are arguing about a minuscule segment of the market,” said David Dworkin, president of the National Housing Conference, an affordable-housing advocacy group.
Gary Acosta, chief executive of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, a trade organization, said, “It’s just another effort to vilify immigrants and to continue to scapegoat them for any issues that we have here in the United States.”
A Trump campaign spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Undocumented immigrants in the U.S. can obtain an obscure type of mortgage designed for taxpayers without Social Security numbers, most of whom are Hispanic. The passage of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 allowed banks to use identification numbers from the Internal Revenue Service as an alternative to Social Security, extending a number of financial services to people without legal status for the first time.
Mortgage loans for undocumented immigrants are typically higher interest and borrowers include legal residents who have undocumented spouses, Acosta said. Lenders include regional credit unions and community-development financial institutions.
In his speech, Trump said that “the flood” of undocumented immigrants is driving up housing costs. “That’s why my plan will ban mortgages for illegal aliens,” he said.
Trump didn’t elaborate on how he would enact a ban on such loans.
Though mortgages for undocumented people living in the U.S. are relatively rare, residential real-estate purchases by foreign nationals are big business , especially in expensive coastal cities such as New York and Los Angeles. These sales have declined in recent years, however.
Close to half of foreign purchases are made by people residing abroad, while the other half are made by recent immigrants or residents on nonimmigrant visas, according to an annual survey by the National Association of Realtors. Many affluent foreigners buy U.S. homes with cash instead of obtaining mortgage financing.
In his Thursday speech, which focused mostly on other economic matters such as energy and taxation, Trump proposed other measures to bring down housing costs, including cutting regulations for builders and allowing more building on federal land. Similar ideas appeared in the housing policy outline Harris released in August .
The former president has spoken on housing-related issues in speeches at other recent campaign stops, including in Michigan last month, where he touted his administration’s 2020 overturn of a policy that had encouraged cities to reduce racial segregation .
“I keep the suburbs safe,” Trump said. “I stopped low-income towers from rising right alongside of their house. And I’m keeping the illegal aliens away from the suburbs.”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
