First Home Owners - stressed

Many first home buyers with young families who bought their homes in the second half of 2009 are now struggling with higher interest rates.

According to the Fujitsu Consulting mortgage stress index, they expect mortgage rates to increase by another 0.75 percentage points this year, which will cause many first buyer households in some degree of mortgage stress to increase from 40% to 47%.

Mild mortgage stress means having to cut back on spending or borrowing to meet mortgage repayments. Severe mortgage stress is being behind on repayments.