Tim Lawless

speaker

584 appearances 2 recordings 2 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 8 Jul

Tim Lawless’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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FEAR & GREED | Business News · Q+A: Has Australia’s housing downturn finally arrived? · 1 Jun 2026 podcast

Yeah, I think this will be quite central to their discussions.

And I completely agree with you.

The wealth effect is very important.

And about 55% of household wealth in Australia is in housing.

About 60% of bank balance sheets are in residential mortgages.

So it is very important.

And you're right, as housing prices fall and household wealth reduces, you probably see some negative impacts on consumption, along with just very low levels of consumer sentiments and cost of living pressures also weighing on consumption as well.

So again, consumption is what, 60, nearly 60% of economic activity.

So yeah, there's definitely some risks to economic growth here as the housing market moves into a down phase.

Yeah.

I mean, first home buyers are, I guess, in a better position as housing prices fall, but they're also in a harder position because serviceability costs are very high and demonstrating ability to service a mortgage

At a 3% serviceability buffer, you're generally looking at mortgage rates above 9% for serviceability assessment.

So that's pretty tough, especially if you're buying into the market with, say, a 95% LVR, taking advantage of the 5% deposit guarantee.

So I think even though it looks great for first home buyers as housing prices fall, I don't think you're going to see a sudden rush of first home buyer activity.

Add to that, if you're a first home buyer, there's some psychology of not wanting to buy into a high point of the market and maybe waiting for the downturn to play out a while.

Yeah, well, let's provide some context first.

So investors, at least up to the March quarter, were 41% of mortgage demand in Australia, which is overrepresented.

Normally, you'd expect investors to be about a third of demand.

That's the long run average.

So investors are quite active or have been quite active in the market.

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