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About 60 percent of households will need to refinance their mortgage at higher rates over the next year or so.
Property research firm CoreLogic said many households will need to budget for the additional costs, with 50 percent of the value of existing fixed rate loans due to be repriced within the next 12 months, while another 10 percent were on floating interest terms.
CoreLogic chief property economist Kelvin Davidson estimated current rates of around 6.5 percent would increase mortgage repayments by about $9,275 more a year, based on a $500,000, 30-year mortgage, currently fixed at 4 percent.
However, the costs would be much higher for borrowers currently on fixed rate mortgages in a range of 2 and 3 percent.
He said loan repayment problems and non-performing debt on the banks' books had so far remained very low, even though many borrowers had already moved from the ultra-low 2- to-2.5 percent rates onto a higher level.
"However, we should still be mindful of recent Centrix data reporting a lift in borrowers missing repayments," Davidson said.
"Over the coming months, the unemployment rate is expected to rise - which at face value, will make it tougher to maintain the smooth repricing path."
However, he said people with jobs should be able to manage through, particularly given interest-only mortgage repayment options.
"The projected resilience of employment is a helpful buffer, and by the end of the year, we suspect that this mortgage repricing flow will have become less of an issue - as most repricing events from then on will be from 'high to high' in terms of mortgage rates, rather than the 'low to high' as we're currently seeing," Davidson said.
