Martin North at DFA does monthly household surveys to assess the granularity of property data in Australia. What he finds is that one-third of households (about 1 million) are in mortgage stress. In Sydney, the problem is concentrated in the Western suburbs and inner city units.
Many Western and outer fringe households bought in at high prices and have experienced price falls of 30% or more. They are locked in because of little or no remaining equity and cannot refinance to get the benefit of lower rates. They have run down savings and run up credit cards in the hope that the situation would improve but there has been little movement in these areas and banks are starting to foreclose.
Inner city units have suffered similar price falls but also face the problem of poor construction standards which makes resale difficult.
Martin is skeptical of high auction clearance rates and recovery in prices, pointing out that this is largely restricted to the Eastern suburbs where households enjoy much lower mortgage exposure relative to property values.
Hat tip to Macrobusiness where I found the video.
Colin Twiggs is a former investment banker with almost 40 years of experience in financial markets. He co-founded Incredible Charts and writes the popular Trading Diary and Patient Investor newsletters.
Using a top-down approach, Colin identifies key macro trends in the global economy before evaluating selected opportunities using a combination of fundamental and technical analysis.
Focusing on interest rates and financial market liquidity as primary drivers of the economic cycle, he warned of the 2008/2009 and 2020 bear markets well ahead of actual events.
He founded PVT Capital (AFSL No. 546090) in May 2023, which offers investment strategy and advice to wholesale clients.