Australian home borrowers have copped the 13th interest rate rise in 18 months with the Reserve Bank cash rate now at a 12-year high of 4.35 per cent.
The first increase since June will add $99 to an average, $600,000 mortgage after persistently high inflation saw the Reserve Bank inflict more pain on Melbourne Cup Day.
The Reserve Bank’s new governor Michele Bullock, who took over in September, has presided over her first rate hike, adding to the most severe pace of monetary policy tightening since 1989.
‘Inflation in Australia has passed its peak but is still too high and is proving more persistent than expected a few months ago,’ she said.
‘The latest reading on CPI inflation indicates that while goods price inflation has eased further, the prices of many services are continuing to rise briskly.’
Australia’s Big Four banks had expected a November rate rise because inflation in the year to September rose by 5.4 per cent, marking only a small change from the 6 per cent annual pace in the June quarter.
The Reserve Bank is expecting inflation to remain outside its two to three per cent target until June 2025.
Australian home borrowers have copped the 13th interest rate rise in 18 months with the Reserve Bank cash rate now at a 12-year high of 4.35 per cent
Annual repayments on a typical Australian mortgage are now $18,744 higher than they were in early May 2022 when Reserve Bank interest rates were still at a record-low of 0.1 per cent and the banks offered mortgage rates starting with a ‘two’.
The latest quarter of a percentage point rate rise will see a Commonwealth Bank variable rate rise to 6.69 per cent, up from 6.44 per cent.
Tuesday’s increase marked the sixth Melbourne Cup Day hike during the past 20 years, with the bad news also occurring in 2003, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2022.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
Content source – www.soundhealthandlastingwealth.com
