Mortgage stress is at its highest in New South Wales, according to the Trends in Australian RMBS Collateral: 2004 -2007 report. The report analysed around a million mortgages totalling $178 billion, and found that 0.66 per cent of mortgages in NSW were 90 days past due, triple the rate of the rest of Australia. The combination of rising interest rates and high petrol prices was causing family budgets to be stretched too far, and as a result mortgages were being left unpaid.
And we haven’t seen the end of the strife just yet, with fuel prices expected to rise further, and the full effect of the previous interest rate rises yet to fully hit the market.