Despite all the hopium from the property lobbyists, the truth is more households are running out of runway with regards to their finances.
It has shown up in my latest surveys, with more than half of mortgage holders now struggling with cash flow, and 70% percent of renters in the same boat.
Next Tuesday on my live show I will be walking through the detail behind these numbers. But the pressure is also showing up in other statistics. For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week revealed that value of household deposit accounts decreased by $6 billion in the June quarter, with it being the first decline in 16 years.
“This was the first fall in deposit balances since the Global Financial Crisis and indicates that the household sector was tapping into cash reserves amid rising cost pressures”, the ABS said.
The decline indicates that households are ‘running’ down savings built up during the pandemic to pay for bills and loans as a result of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) aggressive interest rate hikes to fight inflation and the overleverage into property driven by weak lending standards and high prices. Something has to give.
Meanwhile, figures released by the RBA on Friday indicate a growing number of people are using their credit cards to cover the cost of increased bills, with the stock of personal credit having risen by 1.6% in the five months to August.
It seems to me the real pressures are now painfully obvious, and some are truly running out of runway.
But note, the RBA’s forward guidance on monetary policy was unchanged, stating that “some further tightening of monetary policy may be required to ensure that inflation returns to target in a reasonable timeframe, but that will continue to depend upon the data and the evolving assessment of risks.”
So, buckle up people, turbulence ahead.
