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Jessica Darnbrough
The majority of brokers believe an interest rate hike would have little to no impact on potential home buyers.
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According to The Adviser’s latest sentiment survey, 39.5 per cent of brokers believe an additional rate hike right now would have no impact on home loan demand – up 23.7 per cent from this time last quarter.
In addition, 19.6 per cent of respondents actually feel a rate hike would have a positive impact on buyer demand – up 12.3 per cent in the last three months.
RP Data’s Tim Lawless said these results are not surprising given the current state of the economy.
Mr Lawless said low unemployment and higher salaries were helping Australians to feel confident about entering the property market.
“In addition, Australians know that the outlook for interest rates is quite stable which should provide an improved level of confidence for prospective home buyers and investors. Conditions in the housing market now well and truly favour buyers, with the number of listings in the market about 21 per cent higher than at the same time last year. We don’t expect any real upwards price pressure to become apparent until stock levels start to reduce on the back of increased buyer activity,” Mr Lawless said.
“With interest rates hovering just above the decade average and property values weakening, issues associated with housing affordability are showing some small improvements. Prospective first time buyers, who as a group have fallen back to just 15 per cent of all owner occupier loans, may start to show some modest improvement in their numbers thanks to subtle improvements in housing affordability. Certainly the fact that 95 per cent of the working population have a job will also contribute towards buyer confidence when making such a high commitment decision as purchasing a home.”
