You can thank the RBA for this little snafu:
National Australia Bank has jacked up its fixed home loan rates for the second time in two weeks as lenders look to entice borrowers to variable offerings as wholesale funding costs march higher.
Australia’s second-largest lender on Thursday hiked its fixed home loan rates by up to 0.51 per cent, according to RateCity. It follows similar moves by peers Westpac and CBA earlier this month.
NAB increased its three-year fixed term rate by as much as 51 basis points, bringing it to 2.79 per cent.
The property price boom was driven in some significant measure by these rates:
Damien Roylance, mortgage broker and MD at Entourage Finance, told Australian Broker that he had been seeing 9 out of 10 customers choose a fixed rate in recent weeks.
“We’re having the conversation with every single customer at the moment,” he told Australian Broker. “The rates are just too attractive.”
“Owner occupier rates starting with a 1 in front is something that we’ve never seen before, and most people don’t think that a variable rate can go below what’s on offer.”
House prices are going to slow fast on this. The equivalent of four rate hikes in a month is pretty extraordinary stuff.
The RBA has allowed a market inflation panic to overwhelm its forward guidance for Australians that rates would be anchored until 2024.
They have every right to be angry at it.
