Financial guru Mark Bouris has said interest rates aren’t likely to come down until next year amid grim news rates could rise again because inflation is taking longer than expected to ease.
The cash rate was last month left on hold at a 12-year high of 4.35 per cent but the minutes of the Reserve Bank of ‘s most recent meeting warned inflation was still high.
The Reserve Bank’s most recent forecasts have inflation falling to 2.8 per cent by December 2025.
But the June meeting minutes, released on Tuesday morning, hinted inflation could take slightly longer to ease – meaning bad news for the 3 million Aussies with a mortgage.
Mr Bouris, the founder of Wizard Home Loans, said on Sunrise the figures on inflation from the June quarter, which will be released at the end of July, would give the best indication on which way it was headed.
When asked by co-host Matt Shirvington if we were close to seeing interest rates coming down, Mr Bouris said that wasn’t likely in the near future.
‘I don’t know if we’re close to it, I think we’re more likely seeing rates come down sometime later next year in 2025, at least that’s what the money marketing economists are predicting,’ he said.
‘The Reserve Bank’s predictions about what their interest rate rises were going to do are going to take longer to cut in. They are just taking longer for people to readjust their spending.’
The Chairman of home loans company Yellow Brick Road added that the 30 per cent of n home owners that don’t have a mortgage are the ones spending money.
‘The other 31 per cent who do have a mortgage, they are in trouble,’ he said.
The RBA’s June meeting minutes also confirmed the board had debated raising the cash rate.
‘Raising the cash rate at this meeting could be appropriate if members formed the view that policy settings were not sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to target within a reasonable timeframe,’ it said.
After the RBA’s last meeting, Governor Michele Bullock confirmed her board had considered a rate rise during its two-day meeting.
‘Yes, the board did discuss the case for increasing interest rates at this meeting,’ she told reporters.
‘s most powerful central banker also confirmed a rate cut was not even debated, even though home borrowers have endured the most aggressive increases since the late 1980s.
‘No, the case for a cut was not considered,’ she said.
Another rate rise would take the RBA cash to a new 13-year high of 4.6 per cent and add $100 a month to repayments on an average $600,000 mortgage.
The Reserve Bank will meet again on August 5 and 6, following the release of more comprehensive June quarter inflation data on July 31.