Home owners fall behind in mortgage repayments after 13 interest rate rises

Data obtained from Illion reveals 1.5 per cent of people with home loans in Koroit and 1.2 per cent of people with home loans in Camperdown have home loans which are in arrears by 30 days or more.

In Warrnambool .7 per cent of people with a home loan have gone into arrears and in Hamilton there are 1 per cent of home owners who appear to be experiencing financial stress.

In Portland 1.1 per cent have fallen behind in their home loans.

An Illion spokesman said the incidence of home loan arrears in Warrnambool and surrounds was consistent with that being experienced more broadly in regional Victoria.

"Home owners in the largest urban centre of Warrnambool itself are servicing their home loans as well or better than owners in other parts of Victoria (including over metropolitan Melbourne)," the spokesman said.

"However, home owners in the smaller regional towns of Camperdown and Koroit are struggling more to service their debts - with the 30-plus day arrears rate being 50 per cent higher in Camperdown and 80 per cent higher in Koroit."

Illion head of modelling Barrett Hasseldine said the data showed credit stress had continued to rise throughout the first half of 2023.

"There is no real evidence yet that a turnaround in credit stress is in sight. In fact, the current trend suggests that credit stress is continuing to climb, with no clear improvement observed as yet," he said.

"Many households in Australia have limited scope for generating a surplus and we see the number of households like this increasing as credit stress continues to rise".

In September, The Standard reported the average monthly mortgage repayment for a house in Warrnambool in August 2023 was 141 per cent higher than at the same time in 2020.

The Standard crunched the numbers using the latest publicly available property asking prices and interest rate data, revealing the average mortgage repayment had jumped more than $2000 in three years, from $1445 in August 2020 to $3480, which would put the average household in severe mortgage stress.