Property market update: July 2022
Finder's home loans editor Richard Whitten has covered mortgages and the property market since 2017. Every month he analyses price and rate data to provide a snapshot of the Australian property market.
There's no relief for borrowers this month. The Reserve Bank lifted the cash rate a third time, again by 50 whole percentage points. This means most borrowers with variable rate home loans will see their mortgage rates rise by the same amount.
These successive increases have meant borrowers' home loans are now 125 percentage points higher than they were just 3 months ago. This means if your home loan rate was 1.80% at the start of the year, it would now be 3.15%.
This is making home loan repayments very expensive for Australian borrowers. And it's also driving property prices down.
Property prices are continuing to slide, which is unsurprising as borrowing costs rise. Prices in Sydney are down 2.8% in the last quarter, and down 1.1% in Melbourne. Nationally, prices fell just 0.2% for the quarter.
There's not much good news for renters, however, with Corelogic stating this month that rents have "hit record highs."
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Josh Bartlett, mortgage broker and managing director, 
Useless tool – no way to select weekly payments.
Hi Chris,
We appreciate your feedback.
Our tables contain quite a bit of information in them. In the interests of brevity, we currently allow you to compare home loans by monthly payments. If you’d like to know the estimated weekly payments, you can divide these estimates by 4.3. For instance, if the monthly estimate was $3,000, once you divide it by 4.3, the weekly amount would be $697.67.
Hope this helps, and thanks again for the feedback – we’ll explore whether this functionality can be added.
Many thanks
Sarah
I’d like speak to someone about refinancing a please?
Hi Michael,
If you already have a preferred lender, you can visit their website to submit an application and/or request to speak with their home finance representative.
Alternatively, you can speak with a professional mortgage broker to get personalised advice. You can call one of the mortgage brokers found on our page to schedule an appointment or search for a mortgage broker in your area on Google.
I hope this helps!
Richard
I am an Australian citizen returning to Australia after several years abroad. I will be entering into employment with the Australian branch of my existing employer with a new employment contract (but without a probation period). Can you advise limits to home loan borrowing upon arrival. e.g. is their a qualifying period for work/residence in Australia for lenders?
Hi JDM,
Thanks for your question!
All Australian citizens are eligible to apply for a home loan. This is one of the basic requirements. Others include age, income, and other unique requirements of the lender.
As a friendly reminder, carefully review the eligibility criteria of the loan before applying to increase your chances of approval. Read up on the terms and conditions and product disclosure statement and contact the bank should you need any clarifications about the policy.
A mortgage broker is the best person to reach out to see your options for home loans. They can give you a multitude of options according to your situation. In the meantime, to give you an estimate of your monthly repayments, you can use our home loan eligibility calculator.
Hope this helped. Feel free to reach back out for further assistance.
Cheers,
Nikki