Rate Challenge · Housing & Economy Reports
How much of your pay would the home loan take?
What our first survey tells us about repayments, loan sizes and the money left for everything else.
A home loan can look manageable on its own. The real question is how it fits with everything else you need to pay for.
We looked at 199 borrowing-related survey responses. 130 gave an estimate of the share of take-home income that would go towards repayments. The other 69 chose “Not sure / just exploring”. This is voluntary feedback from our website, not a national poll. It still gives us a useful view of the budgets people are considering. [1]
Among the 130 answers that gave a percentage estimate
30% or more of take-home pay66 of 130 estimates
40% or more41 of 130 estimates
50% or more18 of 130 estimates
These groups overlap: the 50%+ group is part of the 40%+ group, and both sit within 30%+.
Bar scale: 0–35% of the 130 percentage estimates
Almost half the estimates were below 30%. At the other end, nearly a third would put at least 40% of take-home pay towards the loan.
Across all 199 responses: 33% selected 30% or more, 32% selected less than 30%, and 35% were unsure/exploring. We do not assume where that last group would sit.
01 · The repayments behind the answers
What do those percentages mean in dollars?
The dollar comparison covers 69 principal-and-interest calculations: 46 attached to percentage estimates and 23 to unsure/exploring answers. Each had a loan amount of at least $10,000. All payments below are shown as monthly equivalents. [1]
Shared bar scale: $0–$6,000 per month
The 20–29% group averaged $3,087 a month. The 30–39% group averaged less, at $2,312. A smaller repayment can still take a bigger slice of income.
The 40–49% group shows why we include the middle value too: its $4,835 average sits well above its $3,338 median. A few large calculations pull the average up.
The “not sure” answers are worth paying attention to
35% of the full group chose “Not sure / just exploring”. Some will be testing an idea. Others may not know how much of their income the mortgage would take. We cannot separate the two.
Among the 23 with comparable repayments, the average was $3,992 a month. 61%—14 of those 23—were at least $3,000 a month.
For anyone getting serious about a loan, not knowing its place in the household budget is concerning. Knowing the payment is one thing. Knowing whether everything else still fits is another.
02 · Loan size, rate and income
Larger loans. Almost the same average rate.
Among the comparable calculations, the group estimating repayments at 40%+ of income had a much larger average loan than the group below 30%. [1]
$731k versus $437k
$4,700 versus $2,958 a month
versus 6.38% in the lower group
Bar scale: $0–$900,000 average loan entered
The result is not just one large loan: remove the biggest calculation from the higher-share group and its average repayment is still 39% higher. Its median loan was also higher: $575,000 versus $400,000—a 44% difference.
This does not prove what causes pressure for a household. Income and loan terms differ, and some rates may have been supplied by the tool. It does show why looking at the rate alone misses a lot.
Same loan. Different household budget.
A $600,000 loan at 6.34% over 30 years has a principal-and-interest repayment of about $3,729 a month. Here is what that payment would take from three example incomes.
Bar scale: 0–60% of take-home income · Same $3,729 monthly repayment
On this example, increasing the rate from 6.34% to 6.59% adds about $98 a month. Borrowing another $200,000 at 6.34% adds about $1,243 a month. Both the rate and the balance deserve attention.
03 · Where the properties were
What can we learn from the states?
A property state was recorded for 62% of the relevant responses—123 of 199. It was missing for the other 38%. We have kept those answers visible rather than guessing their location. [1]
Each bar totals 100% of the relevant answers in that row
Western Australia has 15 responses. Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT have only 11 between them. A few extra answers could noticeably change these percentages.
In Queensland, 43%—18 of 42 answers—were unsure or exploring. In NSW it was 30%—10 of 33. The question of how a loan fits the budget is worth asking across the country.
The state chart deliberately uses a different base from the headline 51%: it includes every relevant answer within each row, not only the percentage estimates.
What the location data cannot tell us yet
The records with repayment amounts have no recorded property state. So this round cannot support an average monthly repayment by state.
The property figures also need care. Across the 196 responses with a property value, the median was $850,000. The average was about $1.38 million, pulled up by large entries. Neither is an estimate of the typical Australian home.
Property value is not the same as the amount borrowed. Savings, equity and existing debt can make the loan very different. For the wider state picture, the official lending figures are a better starting point.
04 · The wider Australian picture
Large loans are not just a Sydney and Melbourne story.
The ABS figures for the June quarter 2026 show the scale of new borrowing. They cover average new owner-occupier dwelling loan commitments, excluding refinancing—not the balances on all existing mortgages. [2]
June quarter 2026 · ABS
Bar scale: $0–$1 million · June quarter 2026
NSW had the largest average. But Queensland and WA were both above Victoria, with average new loans over $700,000.
It rose from $409,000 in June 2016 to $731,000 in June 2026. That is a change in loan amounts, not a 79% worsening in affordability. Incomes, rates and the mix of borrowers also changed. [2]
That brings us back to the household budget. A bigger loan does not automatically mean trouble—but the repayment needs to be considered alongside the income available to cover it.
05 · How this fits the longer story
The share of income needed for a new loan has risen.
The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council’s 2026 report puts rates, dwelling values and income together. Its new-purchase measure rose from 26.6% of gross household income in 2019–20 to 46.1% in 2024–25: an increase of 19.5 percentage points. [4]
Read the chart as a table
| Financial year | Share of gross income |
|---|---|
| 2019–20 | 26.6% |
| 2020–21 | 26.8% |
| 2021–22 | 30.5% |
| 2022–23 | 39.3% |
| 2023–24 | 45.1% |
| 2024–25 | 46.1% |
This chart uses income before tax. It is not the same as our take-home-pay question or the percentage of respondents choosing an answer. The Council also reported a slight improvement during calendar 2025, while repayment costs remained elevated. [4]
National household estimates show pressure too
AIHW, using ANU modelling, estimated that 44.5% of mortgage households spent more than 30% of disposable income on housing costs in 2024–25, up from 24% in 2021. Housing costs include rates as well as mortgage payments. [3]
That is useful context, not a direct comparison with RC’s 51%. Our survey records voluntary repayment estimates, including possible future loans. It cannot tell us that national mortgage stress is higher or lower than the official estimate.
Why the old interest-rate argument only goes so far
The balance-and-income question is not new. An RBA comparison put modelled repayments at 30.4% of average household disposable income in 1989, with a 17% mortgage rate. Its 2006 estimate was still 27.7%, despite a much lower 7.2% rate, as average loans had grown. [5]
The comparison has different loan coverage and uses 25-year loans. It is not a verdict on which generation had it hardest. It is a reminder that a lower rate on a bigger loan can still take a large part of the pay packet.
06 · What we take from it
The repayment is only half the question.
What is left afterwards is the other half.
There is no single household budget in these answers. Some estimates leave more room; others put a substantial part of take-home pay towards the loan. And a sizeable group has not given a clear percentage yet.
The useful observation is simple: look at the loan amount, the repayment and the income together. A better rate helps. So does knowing how much is left for ordinary life.
Our survey is informal. It still has value. It gives us a first look at the commitments people are considering—and where the budget picture may need more work.
About the numbers
The survey: 199 borrowing-related answers, collected from 12 October to 2 November 2026 and checked against RC Analytics at 3:55 pm Sydney time on 2 November. The last included answer arrived at 1:29 pm that day. This publication uses a fixed data cutoff. The main income-share percentages use 130 estimates; unsure/exploring uses all 199. State-chart percentages use all answers in each row.
The repayment comparison: 69 records: 46 percentage estimates and 23 unsure/exploring answers. We used required principal-and-interest repayments with a known frequency and loans of at least $10,000. Interest-only and smaller-loan calculations stay in the survey counts but are not mixed into these dollar averages. Weekly payments are multiplied by 52 ÷ 12; fortnightly by 26 ÷ 12. Optional extra payments are excluded; entered loan terms are retained.
What is not verified: This is self-selected website feedback, not a representative sample or a count of verified unique households. Amounts are calculations, not verified debts or valuations. Rates may be entered or supplied by the tool. Household incomes were not recorded. No missing state is inferred from a browser time zone. National sources retain their own definitions.
Reading the figures: “Average” means the arithmetic mean; “median” is the middle value. Percentage changes in loan amounts use unrounded averages. A change from 26.6% to 46.1% is 19.5 percentage points, not 19.5%. Totals can differ slightly because of rounding.
Sources
- Rate Challenge survey. Supplied answer export, updated with confirmed-human, non-test RC Analytics answers through the stated cutoff. New property details were checked against the matching completed calculation. Publication uses aggregate figures only.
- ABS, Lending Indicators, June quarter 2026. Released 14 August 2026. Average owner-occupier dwelling loan sizes, original series; refinancing excluded.
- AIHW, Housing affordability. Released 16 October 2025. ANU PolicyMod estimates based on ABS 2019–20 income and housing data, updated to 2024–25.
- NHSAC, State of the Housing System 2026. Table E.1, pp 116–117; definitions on p 54; 2025 repayment discussion on p 60. Based on NHSAC data, CC BY 4.0.
- RBA, Financial Stability Review, September 2006, Table 5. 25-year loans; disposable income before interest payments. 1989 includes refinancing; later years exclude it. Rate basis changes; 2006 is an estimate.
General information and informal observations—not personal financial advice, a lending assessment or a national mortgage-stress measure.