"Intelligent Insight"
Following our October 2017 Mortgage Stress update, here is a map of the count of households in mortgage stress in Greater Brisbane, using our Core Market Model.
Here is a list of the top 10 most stressed post codes in Queensland, by the number of households in stress.
We will post similar maps and lists across the other states shortly.
Following our October 2017 Mortgage Stress update, here is a map of the count of households in mortgage stress in Greater Melbourne, using our Core Market Model.
Here is a list of the top 10 most stressed post codes in the region, by the number of households in stress.
We will post similar maps and lists across the other states shortly.
The Bank of England is poised to raise interest rates for the first time since July 2007. Its monetary policy committee (MPC) will meet to decide on November 2. The MPC’s last vote on the issue was a 7-2 majority for maintaining current rates, but it’s only a matter of time before rates rise.
Initially, the rise will likely be from 0.25% to 0.5%. This may not sound like much, but it could have significant implications for the UK economy. Mark Carney, the bank’s governor, is facing an uncomfortable trade-off, mulling priorities of curbing inflation versus financial stability.
The reason for the rate rise is inflation, which has risen to its highest level since April 2012 (3%) – beyond the government’s target figure of 2%. This is a result of the Brexit vote in June 2016, which saw a precipitous drop in the pound, making imports more expensive and pushing up prices of everyday items.
A rise in interest rates should help stem this by boosting the value of the pound. For example, expectations of a rate increase last month prompted a temporary jump in the value of the pound of 1.5%. Plus, the central bank will be hoping that higher interest rates will encourage people to save – another method of curbing inflation – although any increases on savers’ rates will be negligible.
But, despite hints of a rise from Carney, the situation is not that simple. The long period of low interest rates has been accompanied by a worrying surge in consumer borrowing. Household debt exceeds 100% of household income and house prices are on an upward trajectory, climbing back to 2007 crisis levels.
Clearly, an interest rate increase would harm borrowers and may even harm financial stability if monthly repayments are no longer manageable and defaults rife.
UK household debt to income ratio. ONS and Bank of England calculations
With the average outstanding balance on a mortgage in the UK estimated to be close to £120,000 and, assuming repayment will take 15 years, the next graph shows estimated annual repayments for a variety of possible interest rate hikes.
What is worrying is that the Taylor rule (a popular interest rate forecasting tool) suggests that interest rates should be approximately 2% higher than they currently are. This would further squeeze household budgets and push the average repayments above £11,000 per year.
Stopping a car crash
Another area the Bank of England is keeping a close eye on is the way cars are financed. Many new cars are purchased on personal contract plans (PCPs) whereby they are paid for via monthly repayments – usually with zero or low upfront payments. A rise in interest rates could result in an awkward situation for car financiers if owners are unable to keep up with payments and decide to return their keys early.
With a glut of cars returning to the forecourt, as people reallocate resources to increasing mortgage and debt payments, the estimated residual values of the cars may prove inaccurate, leaving financiers (banks and car firms) with heavy losses. And it doesn’t stop there. The loans have been syndicated so there could be ripple effects through the financial system.
Headed for a crash? John Stillwell/PA Archive/PA Images
All in all, this sounds rather reminiscent of 2007, with the difference being that the asset here is a car that is depreciating in value as opposed to a house. Not surprisingly, the Bank of England is trying to reign in car financing to engineer a soft landing.
Slow and steady
On top of all this, there is the notably gloomy outlook for the UK economy to contend with. To keep growth on an upward trajectory, keeping interest rates low is still seen by some as a necessity, and some economists (notably Danny Blanchflower, a former MPC member) still advocate for this.
Unemployment is now at low levels not seen since the mid-1970s, which is music to the ears of cautious central bankers. Yet wage growth – a measure of longer term inflation – remains subdued, and “underemployment” (such as the part-time worker who really wants to work full time) still has some way to fall to get back to pre-crisis levels not withstanding recent drops.
This will ensure that any hikes in interest rates will be a drawn out process – to avoid frightening financial markets, which have grown accustomed to cheap central bank funds and loose monetary policy over the past decade.
Author: Johan Rewilak, Lecturer, Aston University
The Domain preliminary auction results are in, and the national clearance rate is sitting at around 66%, compared with 71% last year, on lower volumes. Melbourne of course is down ahead of the Melbourne Cup.
Brisbane cleared 43% of 125 scheduled auctions, Adelaide 63% of 83 scheduled and Canberra 71% of 100 auctions. So momentum is strongest in Canberra and Melbourne, although more property actually changed hands in Sydney. We expect the weakness in the market to continue in the weeks up to the summer break.
Its crunch time in Australian banking, as property momentum slows, households feel the pinch and mortgage risks rise. Welcome to the Property Imperative Weekly to 4th November 2017.
Watch the video or read the transcript.
We start this week’s review by looking at interest rates. The Bank of England lifted their cash rate by 25 basis points, the first hike since July 2007. The move highlights how shrinking output gaps and tighter labour markets are pushing central banks towards interest rate normalisation. The FED kept US rates on hold at their November meeting, but signalled its intent to lift rates further, and Trump’s nomination for the FED Chair, Jay Powell to replace Yelland will probably not change this. The US economy is certainly outpacing Australia’s at the moment. Rates are indeed on the rise and policy makers are of the view that if there is the need to lift rates, the tightening should be gradual as to not destabilize the economy. The question is though whether this will neutralise the impact, or simply prolong the pain as we adjust to more normal rates. The boom brought about by the banks’ policy of extending credit must necessarily end sooner or later. RBA please note!
Turning to this week’s Australian economic data, Retail turnover was flat in September according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. More evidence that many households are under financial pressure. In trend terms, there were falls in WA, NT and ACT. NSW had a 0.1% rise compared to last month. On the other hand, Dwelling approvals were stronger than expected, up 1.8 per cent in September 2017, in trend terms, the eighth rise in a row. Approvals for private sector houses rose 0.7 per cent.
The latest credit data from the RBA showed housing lending grew the most, with overall lending for housing up 0.5% in September or 6.6% for the year, which is higher than the 6.4% the previous year. Looking at the adjusted RBA percentage changes we see that over the 12 months’ investor lending is still stronger than owner occupied lending, though both showed a slowing growth trend. They said $59 billion of loans have been switched from investment to owner occupied loans over the period of July 2015 to September 2017, of which $1.4 billion occurred in September 2017. So more noise in the numbers!
Unusually, personal credit rose slightly in the month though down 1.0 % in the past year. Lending to business rose just 0.1% to 4.3% for the year, which is down from 4.8% the previous year. Business investment (or the lack of it), is a real problem. As John Fraser, Secretary to the Treasury said the bottom line is as the mining investment boom ended, Australia has struggled with weak investment in the non-mining sectors, weighing on the labour market, productivity and ultimately economic growth.
And data from APRA showed that the banks are still doubling down on mortgages, in September. Owner occupied loan portfolios grew 0.48% to $1.03 trillion, after last month’s fall thanks to the CBA loan re-classifications. Investment lending grew just a little to $550 billion, and comprise 34.8% of all loans. Overall the loan books grew by 0.3% in the month. We saw some significant variations in portfolio flows, with CBA, Suncorp, Macquarie and Members Equity bank all reducing their investment loan balances, either from reclassification or refinanced away. The majors focussed on owner occupied lending – which explains all the attractor rates for new business. Westpac continues to drive investor loans hard. Comparing the RBA and APRA figures, it does appear the non-banks are lifting their share of business, as the banks are forced to lift their lending standards. But they are still fighting hard to gain market share, which is not surprising seeing it is the only game in town!
Corelogic’s October property price trends showed that Sydney’s deflating house prices have dragged the property market down across the entire country, the most conclusive sign yet that the boom is over. October is traditionally a bumper month for property sales but average house prices across Australia’s capital cities posted no growth at all. Sydney house prices fell by 0.5 per cent, bringing quarterly losses to 0.6 per cent. Prices in Canberra and Darwin also fell (by 0.1 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively), while Adelaide and Perth each posted zero growth. Of the capital cities, only Melbourne, Brisbane and Hobart saw property prices increase, at 0.5 per cent, 0.2 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively. The Australian Property boom is “Officially Over”, despite stronger auction clearance results this past week, which underscored the gap between the momentum in Sydney and Melbourne. Total listings and clearance rates were significantly higher down south.
The HIA reported a further decline in New Home Sales. The results are contained in the latest edition of the HIA New Home Sales Report. During September 2017, new detached house sales fell by 4.5 with a reduction of 16.7 per cent on the multi-unit side of the market.
Lender Mortgage Insurer, Genworth a bellwether for the broader mortgage industry, reported their Q3 performance. While the volume of new business written was down 9.8% on 3Q16, the gross written premium was only down 3.9%. Underlying NPAT was down 14.5% to $40.5 million. The total portfolio of delinquencies rose 4.4% to 7,146, and the loss rate overall was 3 basis points. The regional variations are stark, the performance in Queensland and Western Australia remains challenging and delinquencies are elevated they said. WA was 0.88%, up 19 basis points and QLD was 0.72% up 5 basis points. According to the Australian Financial Security Authority, insolvencies are also rising in WA and QLD, which is mirroring the rise in mortgage delinquency.
We released our October 2017 Mortgage Stress and Default Analysis. Across Australia, more than 910,000 households are estimated to be now in mortgage stress up 5,000 from last month. This equates to 29.2% of households. More than 21,000 of these are in severe stress, up by 3,000. We see continued default pressure building in Western Australia, as well as among more affluent household, beyond the traditional mortgage belts across the country. We estimate that more than 52,000 households risk 30-day default in the next 12 months, up 3,000 from last month. We expect bank portfolio losses to be around 2.8 basis points ahead, though with WA losses rising to 4.9 basis points.
Risks in the system continue to rise, and while recent strengthening of lending standards will help protect new borrowers, there are many households currently holding loans which would not now be approved. As continued pressure from low wage growth and rising costs bites, those with larger mortgages are having more difficulty balancing the family budget. These stressed households are less likely to spend at the shops, which will act as a further drag anchor on future growth, one reason why retail spending is muted.
The post code with the highest count of stressed households, and up from fourth place last month is NSW post code 2170, the area around Liverpool, Warwick Farm and Chipping Norton, which is around 27 kilometers west of Sydney. There are 6,380 households in mortgage stress here. The average home price is $803,000 compared with $385,000 in 2010. There are around 27,000 families in the area, with an average age of 34. The average income is $5,950. 36% have a mortgage and the average repayment is about $2,000 each month.
Mortgage stress is still strongly associated with fast growing suburbs, where households have bought property relatively recently, often on the urban fringe. The ranges of incomes and property prices vary, but strikingly it is not necessarily those on the lowest incomes who are most stretched. The leverage effect of larger mortgages has a significant impact.
The latest Household Debt Trends from the ABS also showed first, more households are in debt today, compared with 2005-6, and second more households have debts at more than three times their income. Those on lower incomes have borrowed harder, with 50% in the bottom income range borrowing, compared with 44.6% in 2003-4.
Many banks are cutting their mortgage rates to try to attract new borrowers, desperate to write business in a slowing market, because mortgage lending remains the only growth engine in town. We saw announcements from ANZ, and Virgin Money, the Bank of Queensland-owned lender who cut rates by up to 21 basis points and also lifted the maximum LVR to 80%. On the other hand, mirroring other lenders, Westpac is the latest to bring in a number of responsible lending changes affecting how brokers enter in requirements and objectives (R&O) questions for clients. In a note to brokers the bank said: “This will ensure that the correct R&O are captured accurately for all applications submitted and resubmitted and there is a central location that incorporates all the R&O information that has been discussed between yourself and the client with documented evidence of any loan changes,”.
More evidence of the impact of regulation on the mortgage sector came when Bengido and Adelaide Bank’s CEO provided a brief trading update as part of the FY17 AGM. There are some interesting comments on the FY18 outlook. First they have been forced to “slam on the breaks” on mortgage lending to ensure they comply with APRA’s limits on interest only loans and investor loans. As a result, their balance sheet will not grow as fast as previously expected. On the other hand, this should help them maintain their net interest margins, their previous results had shown a steady improvement and strong exit margin. They are forecasting 2.34%.
NAB reported their FY17 results and cash earnings were up 2.5% to $6,642 million, which was below expectations. NAB now has its main footprint in Australia, (and New Zealand). Of the $565 billion in loans, 84% of gross loans are in Australia, and 13% in New Zealand. 58% of the business is mortgages, and 10.9% of gross loans, or $62bn are commercial real estate loans, mainly in Australia. So you can see how reliant NAB is on the property sector. NIM improved a bit, although the long term trend is down. Wealth performance was soft, and expenses were higher than expected, but lending, both mortgages and to businesses, supported the results. They made a provision for potential risks in the retail and the mortgage portfolio, with a BDD charge of 15 basis points but new at risk assets were down significantly this last half. The key risk, or opportunity, depending on your point of view, is the property sector. Currently portfolio losses are low at 2 basis points but WA past 90-day mortgages were up. If property prices start to fall away seriously, new mortgage flows taper down, or households get into more difficulty (especially if rates rise), NAB will find it hard to sustain its current levels of business performance. Ahead, they flagged considerable investment in driving digital, and major cost savings later into FY20 with a net reduction of 4,000 staff.
It is worth saying that back in the year 2000, NAB’s net interest margin was 2.88% compared with 1.85% today, which is lower than ANZ’s 1.99% recently reported. This should be compared with US banks who are achieving 3.21% on average according to Moody’s. It shows that considerable reform of banks in Australia are required. The biggest expense by far is the people they employ. The future of banking is digital! As the mortgage lending tide recedes, the underlying business models of Australian banks are firmly exposed. They have to find a different economic model for their business. Just pulling back to Australia and New Zealand and flogging more mortgages will not solve their problem.
And that’s the Property Imperative Weekly to the 4th November 2017. If you found this useful, as always, do leave a comment below, subscribe to receive future updates, and check back next week for our latest weekly digest
The federal government will be forcing banks to hand over half their credit data ready for reporting by mid-2018 (with the remainder available in 2019).
It seems rather quaint in the age of big data that the big four banks have been able to hold onto their treasure troves of loan data for so long. This data reveals how reliable we are at repaying our loans. This information is gold to a lender.
For the government’s proposed legislation to work well, it would need to ensure effective regulatory systems are in place to protect our data and avoid more mortgage stress. To achieve this, lessons need to be learned from the US experience.
The new legislation on credit data promises to open up the consumer credit market to increased competition. This may in turn lead to cheaper loans.
Nimble competitors using new technologies could offer consumers innovative loan products at competitive interest rates. Non-traditional lenders could aggressively expand their market share at the expense of the banks. Consumers would seem to be the beneficiaries.
Lessons from the global financial crisis
Australia has long maintained one of the most restrictive credit reporting systems amongst OECD countries. Australia’s reporting system had only allowed credit reporting agencies such as Equifax and Dun and Bradstreet to report on consumers’ bad credit histories. These histories include things such as bankruptcies, and late loan and rental repayments.
The US system already has required reporting of the positive aspects of a consumer’s credit behaviour, including their timely loan repayments. This has enabled companies to develop statistical scoring models to estimate a consumer’s loan default risk with remarkable accuracy. Credit scoring became the cornerstone for underwriting decisions for consumer loans.
Unsurprisingly, this led to intense competition. With more accurate data, lenders no longer had to assume that low income consumers represented a higher risk of defaulting on their loans.
With customer loan histories being made available to competitors, low income consumers with a history of being reliable repayers were offered loans. As competition intensified, an ever-expanding sub-prime loan mortgage market developed. Shoddy loan practices became rife, setting the stage for the 2008 global financial crisis.
Australian households overall are already heavily in debt. Intense competition resulting from the proposed new legislation risks pushing households deeper into debt. Low income consumers risk becoming more vulnerable to falling into debt traps.
Partly in response to the global financial crisis, Australia introduced responsible lending obligations on lenders, which are designed to stop loans to consumers who lack the capacity to repay them. However, the US subprime experience showed that lenders became adept at dodging the rules, and regulators appeared to lack the will to enforce them. The regulators will need to be particularly vigilant to avoid this occurring in Australia.
Compelling the big banks to release loan histories to third parties, such as credit reporting agencies, raises further risks that need to be closely attended to. Lenders will either create their own credit scoring models from the data provided by the banks, or rely on the scores produced by credit reporting agencies.
A bad or inaccurate score will have serious implications for a consumer. They may either be refused loans, or only be offered interest rates that are higher than if their score had been accurate.
There needs to be effective systems in place to ensure consumers have ready access to their score, and that they be able to challenge any inaccuracies. Informational transparency should apply for the benefit of both lenders and consumers.
Yet another risk is that our personal loan information will be stolen by criminals. Earlier this year, credit rating agency Equifax was subjected to a cyber attack affecting over 143 million Americans and over 600,000 Brits. Australia’s largest credit reporting agency, Equifax Pty Ltd, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Equifax Inc.
The data breach is subjecting US and UK consumers to increased risks of identity fraud and targeted scams. Requiring the banks to release our loan data to third parties increases the risk of data breaches.
Increased competition can offer considerable benefits for consumers. However, overheated competition risks damaging the interests of individual consumers, and the economy as a whole.
Consumers also face the increased likelihood of data breaches. The federal government and its regulatory agencies will need to be highly alert to these dangers, and ever vigilant.
Author: Justin Malbon, Professor of Law, Monash University
The Bank of England’s (BoE) decision to increase UK interest rates by 25 bp partly unwinds the monetary stimulus it provided last summer, and is unlikely to have a large economic impact, Fitch Ratings says. The BoE looks set to tighten policy slowly, but the first UK rate hike in over decade highlights how shrinking output gaps and tighter labour markets are pushing central banks towards interest rate normalisation.
The BoE said Thursday that its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted by 7:2 to increase the Bank Rate to 0.5%, reversing the cut it made last August in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. It left the stock of bonds purchased under its quantitative easing (QE) scheme unchanged. Prior to last August, the Bank Rate had been unchanged for over seven years. The BoE’s last rate hike was in July 2007.
Fitch has for some time been expecting the post-referendum interest rate cut to be reversed, although in our most recent Global Economic Outlook (September 2017), we expected this to happen in early 2018. The MPC summary said that all members agreed that future increases “would be expected to be at a gradual pace and to a limited extent,” and that monetary policy “continues to provide significant support to jobs and activity.”
We think another increase is unlikely in the next 12 months, given the impact of Brexit uncertainty on the outlook for investment. Today’s decision does not alter our UK growth forecasts , which see a net trade boost partially offsetting slower domestic demand this year, enabling real GDP to rise by 1.5%, before slowing to 1.3% next year. But it remains to be seen how firms and households adjust to a shift in the monetary policy stance after such a long period without a rate rise.
While the BoE has no intention of slowing the economy down, its decision highlights how tighter labour market conditions (UK unemployment is at a 42-year low) and concerns about adverse supply-side impacts from Brexit have reduced tolerance for above-target inflation. Inflation rose to 3% in September partly in response to the weakening of sterling. We forecast inflation to slow next year, averaging 2.5%, but this would still be above the BoE’s 2% target.
As output gaps close, central banks around the world are generally refocusing on policy normalisation. The BoE said it was “ready to respond to changes in the economic outlook as they unfold” to ensure a sustainable return to target, while supporting the UK economy through its Brexit adjustment. Meanwhile the ECB has announced smaller monthly QE purchases from January, while this week’s Fed statement emphasised solid growth and did little to suggest that it felt that recent low US inflation readings were becoming more persistent.
The NAB results yesterday included one of the clearest signals yet of the digital disruption which is hitting the finance sector (and other customer facing businesses too).
Worth also reflecting on the fact that since the turn of the century NAB’s net interest margins have fallen 100 basis points, to below 2% today. They have to find a different economic model for the business. Just pulling back to Australia and New Zealand and flogging more mortgages will not solve their problem. The biggest expense by far is the people they employ.
They will shed 6,000 banking jobs and replace them with 2,000 people holding digital skills, from analytics through to software engineers. The future of banking is indeed digital.
This is because banking is a very “bittable” business, and just like newspapers do not need to sell physical documents to distribute news, banks do not need branches, or people on the customer service or sales lines. If they get the digital design right.
In fact, when we completed our last “Quiet Revolution Survey” which looked at customers and their banking channel preferences, we concluded:
The Quiet Revolution highlights that existing players need to be thinking about how they will deploy appropriate services through digital channels, as their customers are rapidly migrating there. We see this migration to digital more advanced amongst higher income households but momentum continues to spread. So players which are slow to catch the wave will be left with potentially less valuable customers longer term. Players need to adapt more quickly to the digital world. We are way past an omni-channel (let them choose a channel) strategy. We need to adopt a “mobile-first” strategy. Such digital migration needs to become central strategy because the winners will be those with the technical capability, customer sense and flexibility to reinvent banking in the digital age. The bank branch has limited life expectancy. Banks should be planning accordingly.
Many households and small businesses were critical of the slow pace at which banks were moving to service digital, and the lack of innovation available via mobile banking applications. And not just younger “digital migrants”.
So the task in hand for NAB and other other industry players, is to manage down the traditional branch and ATM infrastructure, while building compelling digital alternatives, whether it be payments, core banking or wealth management. And keep the business afloat during the transition. Think changing the propellers on an airplane for jet engines while in flight!
It is quite feasible to use robo-banking technologies to replace mortgage brokers, and financial advisers. It is completely possible to apply for a mortgage end-to-end on line, and deliver a quicker and more compelling customer fulfillment experience. Electronic payments can now replace cash. The mobile device will contain an electronic wallet and payment capability and rewards programmes and much more. Physical plastic credit cards are a thing of the past. Every electronic transaction produces data which is now the new life-blood of banking. Use that data to guide customers to new solutions.
The barriers to change have been the culture (especially in the middle management ranks) within banking organisations, so defaulting to a “let the customer choose” channel approach. But this was always a cop-out. Plus the complexity of the ancient “back-end systems” many of which are tens of years old, have to be tackled or replaced (as the CBA has done).
But now, banks have to be re-engineered and migrated to digital, harnessing the power of algorithms, robotics and user experience experts. A whole new world. We may need banking services, but do we need a bank?
Then there will be consequences for society. First, banks of the future will have many fewer staff, and those who remain will need different skills. Almost none will be customer facing. Just as robots replaced workers on the assembly line, robots are now becoming bankers.
Second, the minority of customers who a Digital Luddites will need to be handled appropriately. The current branch infrastructure is just too expensive. How will banks meet their implicit service obligation? Or will they try to trade it away, as they did with the ATM network?
But third, and this is the rub. What we are discussing here is also happening across other industries, and as the digital revolution gains pace, the risk is that more people find themselves without employment.
This is the worry-some aspect of digital transformation. Digital efficiency will mean fewer jobs. What happens to those without?
We are just 10% along the digital journey. It is unstoppable, and business models, careers and whole chunks of the banking system will be shaken to pieces. Just ask the Fintechs! But the social implications should certainly be considered too.
More evidence that many households are under financial pressure.
Australian retail turnover was relatively unchanged (0.0 per cent) in September 2017, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Retail Trade figures.
The trend estimate for Australian retail turnover was relatively unchanged (0.0 per cent) in September 2017 and relatively unchanged (0.0 per cent) in August 2017. Compared to September 2016 the trend estimate rose 2.0 per cent.
In seasonally adjusted terms, there were rises in food retailing (0.6 per cent), department stores (2.1 per cent), and cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (0.3 per cent). There were falls in other retailing (-1.7 per cent), household goods retailing (-0.4 per cent), and clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (-0.7 per cent) in September 2017. This follows a seasonally adjusted fall of -0.5 per cent in August 2017.
In trend terms, there were falls in WA, NT and ACT. NSW had a 0.1% rise compared to last month.
In seasonally adjusted terms, there were rises in New South Wales (0.2 per cent), Queensland (0.3 per cent), South Australia (0.7 per cent), Tasmania (0.6 per cent), and the Australian Capital Territory (0.1 per cent). There were falls in Western Australia (-1.3 per cent), and the Northern Territory (1.7 per cent). Victoria was relatively unchanged (0.0 per cent).
Online retail turnover contributed 4.4 per cent to total retail turnover in original terms.
In seasonally adjusted volume terms, turnover rose 0.1 per cent in the September quarter 2017, following a rise of 1.5 per cent in the June quarter 2017. “The main contributor to the quarterly volume rise was food retailing (0.9 per cent) but there was also rises in clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (0.7 per cent) and other retailing (0.4 per cent),” said Ben James, the Director of Quarterly Economy Wide Surveys. “A fall in Household goods retailing (-1.6 per cent) offset these rises.”
Following our October 2017 Mortgage Stress update, here is a map of the count of households in mortgage stress in Greater Sydney, using our Core Market Model.
Here is a list of the top 10 most stressed post codes in the region, by the number of households in stress.
We will post similar maps and lists across the other states shortly.
