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.”
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
A new AI-driven account by leading landscape architect Jon Hazelwood pushes the boundaries on the role of ‘complex nature’ in the future of our cities
2 min
Drifts of ground cover plants and wildflowers along the steps of the Sydney Opera House, traffic obscured by meadow-like planting and kangaroos pausing on city streets.
This is the way our cities could be, as imagined by landscape architect Jon Hazelwood, principal at multi-disciplinary architectural firm Hassell. He has been exploring the possibilities of rewilding urban spaces using AI for his Instagram account, Naturopolis_ai with visually arresting outcomes.
“It took me a few weeks to get interesting results,” he said. “I really like the ephemeral nature of the images — you will never see it again and none of those plants are real.
“The AI engine makes an approximation of a grevillea.”
Hazelwood chose some of the most iconic locations in Australia, including the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, as well as international cities such as Paris and London, to demonstrate the impact of untamed green spaces on streetscapes, plazas and public space.
He said he hopes to provoke a conversation about the artificial separation between our cities and the broader environment, exploring ways to break down the barriers and promote biodiversity.
“A lot of the planning (for public spaces) is very limited,” Hazelwood said. “There are 110,000 species of plants in Australia and we probably use about 12 in our (public) planting schemes.
“Often it’s for practical reasons because they’re tough and drought tolerant — but it’s not the whole story.”
Hazelwood pointed to the work of UK landscape architect Prof Nigel Dunnett, who has championed wild garden design in urban spaces. He has drawn interest in recent years for his work transforming the brutalist apartment block at the Barbican in London into a meadow-like environment with diverse plantings of grasses and perennials.
Hazelwood said it is this kind of ‘complex nature’ that is required for cities to thrive into the future, but it can be hard to convince planners and developers of the benefits.
“We have been doing a lot of work on how we get complex nature because complexity of species drives biodiversity,” he said.
“But when we try to propose the space the questions are: how are we going to maintain it? Where is the lawn?
“A lot of our work is demonstrating you can get those things and still provide a complex environment.”
At the moment, Hassell together with the University of Melbourne is trialling options at the Hills Showground Metro Station in Sydney, where the remaining ground level planting has been replaced with more than 100 different species of plants and flowers to encourage diversity without the need for regular maintenance. But more needs to be done, Hazelwood said.
“It needs bottom-up change,” he said. ““There is work being done at government level around nature positive cities, but equally there needs to be changes in the range of plants that nurseries grow, and in the way our city landscapes are maintained and managed.”
And there’s no AI option for that.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
