The number of delinquent housing loans underlying Australian prime residential mortgage-backed securities fell in November 2016 from the previous month, according to a recent report by S&P Global Ratings. Prime mortgage arrears were up 25% from a year earlier, but remain relatively low. A total of 1.15% of the mortgages underlying Australian prime RMBS were more than 30 days in arrears in November, as measured by Standard & Poor’s Performance Index (SPIN), down from 1.16% in October.
Down slightly but in seasonal terms up! November is usually the low point for the year and it has hardly budged month over month. The majors are leading bad loan growth:
We’re going to see post-GFC highs for both majors and regionals in the first quarter data. Still low levels relatively speaking but the trend shows no sign of turning.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
