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Steven Cross
Homebuyers are less stressed about their mortgage, although higher living costs and unemployments fears continues to linger, new figures show.
“While cost of living pressures and an increase in unemployment are likely to strain households, currently these problems are being offset by positive factors such as wage growth, low inflation and interest rate cuts,” CEO of Genworth, Ellie Comerford, said.
However, Ms Comerford also said that further rises in the cost of living is the biggest cause of concern for everyone.
According to the Genworth Homebuyer Confidence Index (HCI), just over one in five homebuyers have experienced mortgage stress in the last six months. This is down from September last year, where a quarter of mortgage holders felt stressed about repayments.
Stress was also less of a concern for people planning to buy a home, with 22 per cent believing they would find it tough to pay off a mortgage, down from 25 per cent in September.
Around 86 per cent of recent first home buyers easily met, or even overpaid, their mortgage in the last 12 months, which is well above the 78 per cent average.
The research director of RFi, Alan Shields, said this is to be expected. “If they made a commitment to a mortgage in the last few months, then why wouldn’t they be prepared to pay it off?,” he said.
“We are confident that [confidence levels] will be up again in six months’ time,” he told the Genworth briefing yesterday.
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