Great slide from the NAB budget presentation:
The RBA is in a cleft stick:
- Raising interest rates would increase mortgage stress and threaten stability of the banking system.
- Lowering interest rates would aggravate the housing bubble, creating a bigger threat in years to come.
The underlying problem is record high household debt to income levels. Housing affordability is merely a symptom.
There are only two possible solutions:
- Raise incomes; or
- Reduce debt levels.
Both have negative consequences.
Raising incomes would primarily take place through higher inflation. This would generate more demand for debt to buy inflation-hedge assets, so would have to be linked to strong macroprudential (e.g. lower maximum LVRs for housing) to prevent this. A positive offshoot would be a weaker Dollar, strengthening local industry. The big negative would be the restrictive monetary policy needed to slow inflation when the job is done, with a likely recession.
Shrinking debt levels without raising interest rates is difficult but macroprudential policies would help. Also policies that penalize banks for offshore borrowings. The big negative would be falling housing prices as investors try to liquidate some of their investments and the consequent threat to banking stability. The slow-down in new construction would also threaten an economy-wide down-turn.
Of the two, I would favor the former option as having less risk. But there is a third option: wait in the hope that something will turn up. That is the line of least resistance and therefore the most likely course government will take.