Next month’s budget is an opportunity for the government to move beyond its ‘I feel your pain’ rhetoric to a HomeKeeper-style policy for this particular group of temporarily squeezed Australians.
People in search of more affordable housing gravitate to the outer suburbs, but may then find higher transport costs erase the benefit of lower mortgage payments.
Budgeting to buy a home.
Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock
As a former financial counsellor and former consumer credit educator for ASIC, here’s what I think you need to know if you’re considering mortgage deferral, rent relief or bankruptcy.
Housing is our first line of defence against coronavirus, so leaving someone homeless increases the risk for everyone. Australia should follow other countries in imposing a moratorium on evictions.
Half a million Australians aged 50 and over lost their homes in the first decade of this century.
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47% of Australians aged 55-64 have mortgage debt, up from 14% in 1990.
Researchers found that families who send their children off to college face an increased risk for foreclosure.
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The odds of foreclosure double for families who send their kids off to college, according to two researchers who say their findings show a need for new ways for Americans pay for higher education.
Highly inflated house prices are more concerning to people wishing to move from renting to purchasing a house (mostly potential first home buyers).
Dan Peled/AAP
Even though house prices have risen substantially over recent decades, housing affordability for those with mortgages or own their houses outright hasn’t worsened
A real estate sold sign hangs in front of a west-end Toronto property. Canada’s newly announced housing strategy contains scant measures to help first-time buyers in pricey markets.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy
Canada’s National Housing Strategy leaves a large segment of the population that must find a way to afford housing in the private market. More initiatives are needed to help first-time home buyers.
There are signs our frothy housing market, combined with rising interest rates, could have serious consequences for our economy.
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Fully half of Westpac’s loan book consists of interest-only loans, so why are the banks not more concerned about what could happen next?
Bank lending standards need to be more consistent to avoid borrowers shopping around to find the lender that offers them the highest loan amount.
Paul Miller/AAP
It’s not likely the Australian appetite for property will change but this means we need to hedge our bets against any risks by improving diversification and the way banks finance mortgages.
Unexpected increases in housing prices could have caused buyers considering home ownership to borrow more in order to buy a house, and encouraged homeowners to spend more through withdrawing the equity from their homes.
Dan Peled/AAP
The latest 2016 Census data assesses what the national home ownership and rental rates are and how these vary location. It also gives us a picture of mortgage and rental costs.
Wes Mountain, The Conversation and Jenni Henderson, The Conversation
There’s been quite a bit of speculation over whether Australia has a property market bubble - where house prices are over-inflated compared to a benchmark - and when it might burst. According to housing…
Data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) reveals the average balance on housing loans has barely trended upwards over the last five years.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP