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While income-to-mortgage repayment ratios improved slightly for owner occupiers in the March quarter, rental growth has bitten into affordability for tenants.
According to the latest Adelaide Bank/REIA Housing Affordability Report, the proportion of income required to service a mortgage has reduced slightly.
“The proportion of family income needed to meet home loan repayments has fallen from 30.8 per cent to 30.6 per cent,” said Damian Percy, general manager of Adelaide Bank.
“On the rental side, the proportion of family income needed to meet rent payments has increased slightly from 25.4 per cent in the December quarter to 25.7 per cent.”
The latest findings represent a five per cent gap between rental payments and home loan repayments.
“We welcome an improvement in this quarter, but what of the future? Are we making it easy for people to ‘right-size’ their homes and are state planning policies and taxes such as stamp duty limiting their ability or inclination to do so?" Mr Percy said.
“I think it’s important to keep the housing affordability debate rolling. How can we make it easier for people to more readily upsize and downsize without having to agonise about and plan for such a move over years instead of months?”
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