Half of mortgage stressed households have borrowed to the hilt

More than half of households struggling to repay their mortgages have taken on too much debt relative to their income and even a minimal increase in interest rates could push them to the edge, according to analysis by Digital Finance Analytics.

Its modelling shows that 788,211 or 51 per cent of households have borrowed more than five times their earnings. This amounted to 8.1 per cent of the total borrowing households in the country.