X

RBA Cash Rate August 2023 & Australian Housing Market Update

Another month down and yet another close call by the RBA! Welcome back to Ben’s RBA and Economic Update.  

Join Ben as he unpacks the RBA’s latest decision. He delves into the impact of rising interest rates in the US and the intricacies of the woes happening in the home-building landscape.

Additionally, he provides in-depth insights into the latest property market updates, offering a comprehensive view of the evolving industry.

In today’s RBA release, here are our key themes for this month’s economic update:

👉 Interest Rates went up in the US again – Ben unpacks why

👉 There are more problems brewing in the home-building space – which could be an opportunity for some

👉 And then hang around to hear Ben’s property update section, as he added a little bonus mid-year property outlook update for you

Tune in to stay updated on the latest market developments and gain valuable insights for making informed financial decisions. Watch the video below!

And here are all the time stamps!  

  • 00:00 – What I am covering today 

World Economic Update Segment: 

  • 0:55 – United States Update 
  • 1:22 – United States: GDP Results  
  • 3:38 – United States: Interest Rates
  • 4:15 – United States: Inflation 
  • 7:20 – United States: Employment
  • 8:15 – United States: Consumer Sentiment
  • 8:55 – United States: Business Data
  • 10:15 – China: GDP Results  
  • 13:05 – China: Employment
  • 14:22 – Europe: GDP Results  
  • 15:10 – Europe: Inflation
  • 15:50 – Europe: Interest Rates
  • 16:35 – Europe: Employment 

 Australian Economy Segment 

  • 17:25 – The Cash Rate Announcement! 
  • 22:10 – Inflation Story 
  • 24:50 – Labor Force Data 
  • 26:00 – Consumer Sentiment 
  • 29:35 – Business Data
     

Australian Property Market Update 

And One Final Word…

If you’re worried about your finances or if you have no clarity on your cash flow position, we strongly recommend that you organise your finances now. It’s more important than ever to have a clear view, down to the exact cent, on how much you’re spending each month and how much surplus you’ve got. If you don’t know it, then log into Moorr, your Money SMARTS Platform here, and update the numbers. Don’t have an account yet? Create your free access below and we’ll also send you an e-copy of the instruction manual which is also our best-seller book, Make Money Simple Again. Just fill in the form below and we’ll email it to you right away.

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is general information only and is an opinion comment by Ben Kingsley. The information contained in this video is for Australian residents only. The information does not take into account the particular investment objectives or financial situation of any potential viewer. It does not constitute, and should not be relied on as, financial or investment advice or recommendations (expressed or implied) and it should not be used as an invitation to take up any investments or investment services. No investment decision or activity should be undertaken on the basis of this information without first seeking qualified and professional advice. The Property Couch, its employees or contractors do not represent or guarantee that the information is accurate or free from errors or omissions and therefore provide no warranties or guarantees. The Property Couch disclaims any and all duty of care in relation to the information and liability for any reliance on investment decisions, claiming the use or guidance of this publication or information contained within it. For more information, please visit: http://thepropertycouch.com.au

Money Stretch: Empowering Households to Make Informed Financial Decisions

Ben Kingsley here, and in this MoneySTRETCH tutorial video, I’m introducing you to MoneySTRETCH. Now, MoneySTRETCH is one of our money management tools, that’s an interactive tool inside the web or desktop version of the Moorr platform, and we do recommend you use Chrome to access that. This tool is solving for the biggest problem that most households have, and that is:

How much money do we have and how much will it last if there’s a change in our circumstances?

Think about that. What happens if we decide to have a child and we go down to one income? What is going to be the impact in terms of: are we still going to have positive cash flow or are we going to have negative cash flow? What about interest rates going up? How is that going to impact us in terms of the money flows?

A lot of households make big decisions around money when they aren’t fully informed. And so, the idea with MoneySTRETCH is to provide you with a tool that allows you to make more informed decisions, as opposed to making irrational or emotional decisions.

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s go through to the demonstration screen now.

Here we are in the web or desktop version of the Moorr platform, and we’re at the home page. So, we can see a summary of the household situation. Now, to make this example really interesting, with regards to MoneySTRETCH, I’ve actually put this household in a little bit of financial stress, and this would be playing through in an emotional context. Because even though they’ve got very healthy household income coming in, you can see here that based on their forward projections of the next 12 months of spending, they’ve got $5,253 in the negative. Now, of course, they do have a cash flow buffer, but what would be going through their mind is: how many months are we going to be able to survive? Because they would be seeing that cash savings buffer starting to diminish. And this is an important point because ultimately what I what I did was I put an investment property in there, but in this particular example, interest rates have gone up and they may keep going up. So, we’re going to play around with that scenario to ensure that the household can get some comfort around their current spending habits and what they can potentially look to save and see a line of sight on that information. So, let’s round out explaining a little bit more about their situation.

So, we can see here how the money’s flowing into the household, the tax payable. You can pause this and have a longer or more in-depth look at that. But you can see here there’s $438 per month that they’re going backwards.

Let’s now go into the financial tools. You’ll see MoneySTRETCH, and this takes us into this sandpit area. And again, this is all about an interactive self-assessment tool that’s designed to help with those cash flow questions that you might have. Really easy to use. Now, what you would normally do in your financial area is you would also go and make sure that you’ve done the right job with your bills and spending. So I cannot stress enough to be really understanding of your essential versus your discretionary, meaning your needs versus your wants. And so you can see here you’ve got the opportunity with each expense item to go through and say, “Okay, well, what is essential versus discretionary?” And there’s only a bit of paid television in here that is considered discretionary. It’s usually in the spending area.

Naturally, bills are a fixed cost, and in a lot of cases, they are essential. But we can see here in regards to the groceries and other items, you can see that this couple have been quite honest about what their minimum requirements are in their spending around essential and what are ultimately some of those discretionary items. And if we come down to the bottom here, we can see a summary of those values where we can see that our essential spending across both our bills and our spending, and if we were renting, we would have a grand total of $6,176 versus discretionary spending, which is almost a thousand dollars a month. So we can see that sort of coming through in those numbers. So again, we go across into MoneySTRETCH.

Now, to bring that data across, if you are a regular user of the platform, you simply click on this button here, and that will reset your information on this particular page, and that just gives us a calibration in terms of what’s happening here. So what you can see, if I quickly just go down to the bottom, there’s that $438 that has been brought through in regards to this particular situation. So it’s been brought through, and here we now start to see some lines.

To start, this is telling us our baseline.

So baseline money available is this red line. You’ll start to see money available with current spending, so that line will start appearing. But obviously, the baseline scenario is we are doing our current spending, so that’s our essential and discretionary spending that we’re doing. But this would be money available without essential spending. So, sorry, with just essential spending. So taking out the complete discretionary spending, this is what their story would look like. So we saw that it was around a $5,000 shortfall per month, $438, but if we were to go back and be honest about what sort of discretionary spending we were going to do, there’s every chance that we could stabilize this situation, and we wouldn’t make an irrational decision around selling a property because we just felt a little bit panicked about the current situation. So that is the worst thing you can do. It’s a wealth destroyer. So you want to be able to do everything, and how you do that is you make the invisible visible.

Coming back up into MoneySTRETCH again, you can see here that we’ll reset that data because I didn’t save it. So we’ve imported that data again, and that’s our baseline. And then you can see here with obviously no change. So what I’m doing there is I’m showing you there’s been no change to the current situation. Now, what you will be able to see, if I can set the screen, well, let’s say there’s an example that we’re going to drop 20% of our salary and go down to four days a week. Now, just by doing that, I’m almost there, so go down to 80%, so 0.8. You can start to see that if that was the case and we lost a lot of that income all of a sudden, now the money available in current spending would see us run out of that buffer inside 34 months. So this is set, almost just inside that three-year period. And you can see here that the insights that you’re getting is that you would have 34 months of money available if nothing else was to change in your household. If you obviously continue to just use only essential spending, you can see here that there’s clearly ample money available in excess of three years of buffer, and there are really no problems there in regards to that particular story. And again, in terms of the baseline or the no change, that’s what our situation will be. So what we’re showing you is if you didn’t go back to 0.8 for one job, that would be the scenario which we were tracking before. This is now the scenario assuming that you’re only doing your essential spending, and this is your scenario saying that actually, we’re not changing our lifestyle. We really love it.

This is how much money we’re going to have available and effectively, that’s The Power of Buying Time.

So what you’re trying to do here is buy time, and that’s giving you some comfort around the time where interest rates might settle down, they might start coming back, the economy might be in a bit better shape. And so all of a sudden, you know you’re out, you’re out past any sort of concern that you might have had around your current financial situation. Now let me reset the spending back to $400 again, and you can see those lines have rejoined. Now let’s start to think about what is also plausible and what’s possible around mortgages. So if the mortgage is going to keep going up, you can start having a look at that. So you can see there’s my property investment costs, and there’s my total loan repayments. Let’s say my total loan repayments go up by another $500.

I’m going to go in here and reset that loan to move that up to $7,900, and let’s say my investment loans go up another $300. So I’ll set that to $1,759. And when I start doing those settings, you can start to see a changing story. So there was our baseline or the no change. Unfortunately, when banks put up our interest rates, we have to pay them. So that tells you the story.

This then tells you the story of if we keep spending at the same level in terms of availability, and this tells us our story about the essential or available spending. The more you play around with, ‘Okay, well, what if?’ You know, what if my repayments go up? You know, rather than just $500, what if they were to… And I’ll put that back. What if they were to go up another $1,000 a month? And, you know, same here again, I bring that back down and I change this to… This one going up, you know, I’ll even be more exaggerative and say that’s going to say that that’s gone up by $2,000 a month. So we now start to see where we currently sit, you know, in terms of the insights on the charts. But you’re also getting this nice little summary here.

So if you keep spending at the same level that you do, you’ve got 28 months of runway effectively.

That’s now starting to creep down in terms of if you were to start to look at some of that discretionary spending that you’re doing, you’re still very comfortable in terms of having three years, 36 months of available spending as well. That’s where you can start to look at money in, money out. Then you can also, you know, come down here and you can start to unpack this particular story here around your spending, in terms of your bill payments and also your spending. So we’ve made a mirror copy of what you have in your true financials area, and we’ve made that copy in here in this sandpit. And then you can start playing around with, ‘Well, well, honey, or well, hubby, what if we change this or change that?’ And we can start having a play around with that, and you can see how that then impacts these particular targets around where… And if you hover over them, they will give you those calculations in real time as well. So it really is a phenomenal tool to be able to play around and have a look and stress test cash flow forecasting by yourself and get instant responses.

As part of that, you’ll also see in terms of if you then wanted to make these changes and make them permanent as to your budgets for your next 12 months or whatever it is you’re looking to do, you can then also publish those changes. So any changes that you make in here, so let’s say I wanted to change that to $1,000, I drop that extra discretionary spending on entertainment, and if you publish that result, that would effectively move that information over into your bills or spending area, depending on any changes that you want to make. If you don’t want to make any changes, that’s completely fine. You don’t have to. You’ve got the confidence to know that you’ve got plenty of runway in terms of your current situation, even if interest rates were to go up significantly and your repayments were to go up significantly, any other costs. So you can have a good play around in here in terms of what that looks like.

That just gives you the screen summary. Let’s close out this tutorial.

That’s our introductory video into the MoneySTRETCH tool. It really is a super interactive tool to help you look at cash flows, to model certain types of scenarios. You can spend 10 minutes in there or you can spend 10 hours in there in terms of looking at all of those options. And it really is about stress-testing those household cash flows and those savings buffers because time is a valuable commodity. And so if we’ve got enough of that money to be able to buy that time, we are less panicked and less emotional about decisions that we make.

Now, in that particular example, I intentionally put stress into the household, $5,000 dollars falling in backward.

A lot of households we’ve seen would make irrational decisions and snap decisions about selling investment properties or doing silly things that they could have avoided to do if they had measured that money and understood the time that they had available to themselves.

So please check out that tool and take an opportunity to check out some of our other great tools. We have a full money management system inside there called MoneySMARTS. It is fantastic, super easy to operate, 10 minutes a month to get a really good gauge in terms of how you’re trapping that surplus. You’ve also got WealthSpeed and Wealth Clock that give you this real-time audit, this moment in time ordered, in terms of how quickly your wealth is growing and really starts to change behavior and getting some actions around being able to create that lifestyle by design. So thanks very much for watching this intro video.

There are a lot of other tutorials that you can check out on this page, so please make sure you look for them as part of the Moorr platform. And remember, knowledge is empowering, but only if you act on it.

Thank you.

What are you waiting for? Jump in to Moorr today and see how far your money can go 🙂

 

 

RBA Cash Rate June 2023: RBA’s Tough Call, Wage Growth vs. Productivity Battle & What’s driving Property Values

Another month down and yet another close call by the RBA! Welcome back to Ben’s RBA and Economic Update.   Join Ben as he unpacks the RBA’s latest decision. From navigating loan default aversion to the RBA’s interest rate dilemma, the Aussie economy’s wage growth vs productivity battle, mortgage prison insights, cash flow management tips, and unexpected property price surges.   Tune in to stay updated on the latest market developments and gain valuable insights for making informed financial decisions.  In today’s RBA release, here are our key themes for this month’s economic update:  👉 The US avoids a loan default  👉 The RBA’s tough call on interest rates  👉 Taking a deeper dive into the Aussie economy looking at:  
  • Wages growth vs productivity is the new battle growth for inflation 
  • Some news for anyone stuck in Mortgage Prison as well as some important cash flow management tips to navigate through changing money landscape 
👉 Latest property update where Ben shares his views on why property prices are growing, and why they are growing even faster than expected!  Tune in now or watch the video below!   And here are all the time stamps!   00:00 – What Ben is covering today  World Economic Update Segment:  0:55 – United States Update  1:08 – United States: Debt Ceiling 4:10 – United States: Inflation   6:00 – United States: Interest Rates 6:50 – United States: Employment 7:50 – United States: Consumer Sentiment  8:25 – United States: Business Data 9:50 – China: Not focusing on China this month as not much has changed month on month 10:15 – Europe: Inflation  11:25 – Europe: Interest Rates 12:20 – Europe: Employment    Australian Economy Segment  13:30 – The Cash Rate Announcement!  17:45 – Mortgage Stress  25:50 – Ben’s Message  26:50 – Inflation  31:10 – Labor Force Data  37:25 – Wage Price Index Data   39:40 – Employment Data   43:00 – Consumer Sentiment  45:10 – Retail Sales / Consumer Spending  47:00 – Business Confidence & Conditions   Australian Property Market Update  51:15 – Property Data: Lending 52:58 – Building Approvals 56:51 – CoreLogic’s Home Value Index – May 2023  58:15 – What’s Driving Property Prices? 1:08:40 – Overall Property Outlook 

Other Stuff Mentioned:

Check out this demo video for the Moorr MoneyStretch: https://youtu.be/ol0vocKqcr0

And One Final Word…

If you’re worried about your finances or if you have no clarity on your cash flow position, we strongly recommend that you organise your finances now. It’s more important than ever to have a clear view, down to the exact cent, on how much you’re spending each month and how much surplus you’ve got. If you don’t know it, then log into Moorr, your Money SMARTS Platform here, and update the numbers. Don’t have an account yet? Create your free access below and we’ll also send you an e-copy of the instruction manual which is also our best-seller book, Make Money Simple Again. Just fill in the form below and we’ll email it to you right away.

    DISCLAIMER: This podcast is general information only and is an opinion comment by Ben Kingsley. The information contained in this video is for Australian residents only. The information does not take into account the particular investment objectives or financial situation of any potential viewer. It does not constitute, and should not be relied on as, financial or investment advice or recommendations (expressed or implied) and it should not be used as an invitation to take up any investments or investment services. No investment decision or activity should be undertaken on the basis of this information without first seeking qualified and professional advice. The Property Couch, its employees or contractors do not represent or guarantee that the information is accurate or free from errors or omissions and therefore provide no warranties or guarantees. The Property Couch disclaims any and all duty of care in relation to the information and liability for any reliance on investment decisions, claiming the use or guidance of this publication or information contained within it. For more information, please visit: http://thepropertycouch.com.au            

RBA Cash Rate May 2023: Banking Woes, RBA’s Close Call & Property Inflection Point

The temperatures are dropping, the end of the financial year is looming and the Reserve Bank of Australia have just released their cash rate folks!  

The RBA’s May update is packed with global news, from Banking Woes in the US to the train wreck that is the UK economy, I also cover the Property Market Inflection Point and deep dive into a Rental Yield Analysis. 

Tune in now to hear Ben’s evaluation of the latest update as he unpacks these key themes:     

  • Another banking issue in the US  
  • The RBA makes another close call today? 
  • I’ll also touch on the release of the RBA review 
  • And in my property update, I’ll talk about the current inflection point in the market, plus I’ll do a deep dive on rental yields 

Quick tip! If you’re keen to forecast your cashflows through this period, use the handy MoneySTRETCH feature on our free money management platform, Moorr. Click here to sign up or log in. 

 

Plus, Ben also includes his latest news and commentary on…

👉 The latest inflation data and what we have learned from it 

👉 Property rental increases and how they are putting further upward pressure on inflation 

👉 Employment data now as we see it 

👉 Consumer sentiment now after seeing 11 straight rate rises 

👉 Business data and how trading conditions have improved 

👉 Latest property data including housing credit growth, building approvals & property value results  

👉 And heaps more! 

And One Final Word…

If you’re worried about your finances or if you have no clarity on your cash flow position, we strongly recommend that you organise your finances now. It’s more important than ever to have a clear view, down to the exact cent, on how much you’re spending each month and how much surplus you’ve got. If you don’t know it, then log into Moorr, your Money SMARTS Platform here, and update the numbers.

Don’t have an account yet? Create your free access below and we’ll also send you an e-copy of the instruction manual which is also our best-seller book, Make Money Simple Again. Just fill in the form below and we’ll email it to you right away.

 

 

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is general information only and is an opinion comment by Ben Kingsley. The information contained in this video is for Australian residents only. The information does not take into account the particular investment objectives or financial situation of any potential viewer. It does not constitute, and should not be relied on as, financial or investment advice or recommendations (expressed or implied) and it should not be used as an invitation to take up any investments or investment services. No investment decision or activity should be undertaken on the basis of this information without first seeking qualified and professional advice.

The Property Couch, its employees or contractors do not represent or guarantee that the information is accurate or free from errors or omissions and therefore provide no warranties or guarantees. The Property Couch disclaims any and all duty of care in relation to the information and liability for any reliance on investment decisions, claiming the use or guidance of this publication or information contained within it.

For more information, please visit: http://thepropertycouch.com.au

 

 

 

 

 

 

RBA Cash Rate April 2023: The Close Rate Call

Welcome back to Ben’s RBA and Economic Update where this month’s announcement could mark a “turning point” for Australia…  

Will the Reserve Bank of Australia finally end the country’s 11-month rate hike or is the inflation genie still out of the bottle?!  

Ben unpacks this momentous decision and what it means for Australia’s future (can we expect more rate rises?!). Plus, we’re diving into the latest market data which sees the country recording its largest drop in retail spending – ever (outside of COVID).   

Zooming out, Ben explores the latest news globally including the big headlines: Global Banks Are Failing Today. Tune in to understand why this happening and how the system works. 

Here are Ben’s key themes for this month’s economic update: 

  • US & Swiss Banking Failures, – it’s time we learn more about the global banking system  
  • The RBA cash rate decision – it was such a close call. 
  • Property values are growing? Yes, that’s right, but is this sustainable, or will it turn out to be a dead cat bounce? More on that topic later in this update….   

 

Quick tip! If you’re keen to forecast your cashflows through this period, use the handy MoneySTRETCH feature on our free money management platform, Moorr. Click here to sign up or log in. 

 

Plus, Ben also includes his latest news and commentary on…

👉 The global financial system explained

👉 US makes some solid gains but danger lurks at every corner… 

👉 The Eurozone’s Uphill Battle   

👉 What does today’s decision mean for the future of rate rises and our economy? 

👉 Has the property market found its bottom?! 

👉 Disinflation begins to take hold here in Australia

👉 CoreLogic’s Home Value Index – 3 April 2023, and lots more!

 

And One Final Word…

If you’re worried about your finances or if you have no clarity on your cash flow position, we strongly recommend you to organise your finances now. It’s more important than ever to have a clear view, down to the exact cent, on how much you’re spending each month and how much surplus you’ve got. If you don’t know it, then log into Moorr, your Money SMARTS Platform here, and update the numbers.

Don’t have an account yet? Create your free access below and we’ll also send you an e-copy of the instruction manual which is also our best-seller book, Make Money Simple Again. Just fill in the form below and we’ll email it to you right away.

 

 

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is general information only and is an opinion comment by Ben Kingsley. The information contained in this video is for Australian residents only. The information does not take into account the particular investment objectives or financial situation of any potential viewer. It does not constitute, and should not be relied on as, financial or investment advice or recommendations (expressed or implied) and it should not be used as an invitation to take up any investments or investment services. No investment decision or activity should be undertaken on the basis of this information without first seeking qualified and professional advice.

The Property Couch, its employees or contractors do not represent or guarantee that the information is accurate or free from errors or omissions and therefore provide no warranties or guarantees. The Property Couch disclaims any and all duty of care in relation to the information and liability for any reliance on investment decisions, claiming the use or guidance of this publication or information contained within it.

For more information, please visit: http://thepropertycouch.com.au

 

 

 

 

 

 

RBA Cash Rate August 2022: Inching Closer to a Neutral Cash Rate!

As we welcome in a new financial year, we welcome another not-so-surprising change…

The Reserve Bank of Australia has once again lifted the cash rate by 50 basis points, bringing the official rate to 1.85%. This marks the most aggressive rate rise in a 3-month period since 1994 (If you’re wondering,  back then the RBA lifted the cash rate by 200 basis points)

Tune in as Ben breaks down what this hike means in the big picture and unpack these key themes:  

  • Is the world’s biggest economy in a recession already?  
  • The manufactured economic slowdown is now in full swing with another rate rise this month 
  • Unemployment surprises in the upside beating all forecasts for July 

 

Plus, Ben also includes his latest news and commentary on…

👉 The good and the bad: US Property Market slowdown & the raw material rebound

👉 Unpacking 2 key US data reports: Consumer Price & Core inflation   

👉 China’s largest COVID outbreak since 2020 – How is their economic recovery looking? 

👉 The European Central Bank’s first cash rate hike in 11 years  

👉 Unlocking the mindset of the Australian consumer – are we in crisis mode? 

👉 Retail Sales & Inflation: The Biggest Predictor of Slowing Rates  

👉 Property Price Slump: Should you be worried? 

👉  CoreLogic’s Home Value Index – 1 August 2022 

And much more! 

 

Additional free resources:

🔥 Episode 169 | Alan Oster – NAB’s Group Chief Economist – on Interest-Rate Rise, Tax Cut and The Future of Residential Property

🔥 Episode 389 | Interest Rate Rise: What this means for YOU! – Chat with Evan Lucas

🔥 Episode 390 | Will Interest Rates CRASH the Property Market?!

 

And One Final Word…

If you’re worried about your finances or if you have no clarity on your cash flow position, we strongly recommend you to organise your finances now. It’s more important than ever to have a clear view, down to the exact cent, on how much you’re spending each month and how much surplus you’ve got. If you don’t know it, then log in to your Money SMARTS Platform here and update the numbers.

Don’t have an account yet? Create your free access below and we’ll also send you an e-copy of the instruction manual which is also our best-seller book, Make Money Simple Again. Just fill in the form below and we’ll email it to you right away.

 

 

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is general information only and is an opinion comment by Ben Kingsley. The information contained in this video is for Australian residents only. The information does not take into account the particular investment objectives or financial situation of any potential viewer. It does not constitute, and should not be relied on as, financial or investment advice or recommendations (expressed or implied) and it should not be used as an invitation to take up any investments or investment services. No investment decision or activity should be undertaken on the basis of this information without first seeking qualified and professional advice.

The Property Couch, its employees or contractors do not represent or guarantee that the information is accurate or free from errors or omissions and therefore provide no warranties or guarantees. The Property Couch disclaims any and all duty of care in relation to the information and liability for any reliance on investment decisions, claiming the use or guidance of this publication or information contained within it.

For more information, please visit: http://thepropertycouch.com.au

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instagram

Free Resources

What to be notified when there are
new updates & free resources?

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

×

MONEY SMARTS SYSTEM

Plus We Will Also Notify You When We Release New Episodes

We Only Send You Awesome Stuff

×

SUGGEST A GUEST!

We Only Send You Awesome Stuff

×