52,000 Australian households are at risk of defaulting on their mortgages in the next 12 months

Almost 52,000 Australian households are at risk of defaulting on their mortgages in the next 12 months and a quarter of home owners are under home loan stress, a data analyst says.

According to Digital Finance Analytics (DFA), 767,000 households were in mortgage stress in April, meaning they had little leeway in their finances, up from 669,000 the previous month.

Of those, it said 32,000 were in severe stress and unable to meet repayments with their current income.

It estimated almost 52,000 households were at risk of defaulting in the next year.

“It’s a concerning trend, and it’s a growing trend, and essentially there’s quite a smattering [of households under stress] across the country,” DFA’s principal Martin North told ABC Radio Melbourne.

“What’s significant about the research is it isn’t just in the usual suspects, in other words the mortgage belt, the battling areas you might expect.

“We’re seeing households in all sorts of different areas now experiencing quite some difficulty in just managing their mortgage repayments.”

Traditionally well-off suburbs like Hornsby in Sydney, Brighton in Melbourne and Mount Claremont in Perth were also seeing high levels of stress.

The data was drawn from household surveys conducted by DFA, data from the Reserve Bank, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and APRA.

WA, Victoria lead the way on default risk

Of the 20 postcodes with the most risk of default, the majority fell in WA, followed by Victoria and Queensland.

Mr North said in New South Wales mortgage stress was spread out in a number of different areas, compared to Victoria’s, which was more concentrated in its booming growth suburbs.

Postcodes with high default risk:

• WA – Mandurah, Wanneroo, Canning Vale, Beeliar
• VIC – Derrimut, Point Cook, Werribee, Cranbourne, Craigieburn
• QLD – Mackay, Carrara, Nerang, Hervey Bay, Toowoomba

In those states, and around Brisbane, stress was related to flat incomes, big mortgages and rising costs of living exacerbated by investors.

“While the economic indicators are reasonably good in Victoria, if you actually look at real incomes, they are actually not great. The cost of living is growing faster in Victoria than elsewhere,” he said.

In NSW, high home values have pushed up repayments. Mr North also highlighted high childcare costs as a particular problem.

“In WA, we’ve got prices falling significantly and unemployment rising. It’s pretty scary what’s happening there,” he said.

In some parts of Queensland it’s a similar story to the west. Home values, employment and incomes are falling in the resource-heavy areas like Mackay and the Bowen Basin…

MORE HERE: Severe mortgage stress puts 52,000 Australian households at risk of defaulting, analyst says – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)