Mortgage Choice, the biggest mortgage broker in Australia, is gearing up for an increase in interest rates, as banks move to reverse declining profit margins.
Michael Russell, chief executive of Mortgage Choice, said that banks are likely to raise rates independently of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). “We fully expect that a number — if not all — of the banks are going to move next month, even if the RBA doesn’t,” said Mr. Russell, noting that the average mortgage repayment per month had climbed to around $355 in a year.
“Our customers have had to absorb six interest rate increases over the journey of the last 12 months, which has been incredibly tough,” he said.
He reiterated his previous call for the government to strengthen efforts to improve housing affordability in the country, but added that any implemented measures should not extend to reducing investors’ incentives as a means of improving housing supply.
Yesterday, Mortgage Choice announced that its net profit in the year to June increased 14 percent to $14.8 million, recovering from the collapse in mortgage approvals that wiped out its quarterly results in the previous year.