18 Lenders Cut Rates — The RBA Already Lost Control

The banks just called the RBA’s bluff. Since the Reserve Bank hiked rates in May, 18 separate lenders have cut their variable rates — and that’s before any official rate cut. This is a rate war, and it tells you far more about where the market is headed than the headlines do. The smart money is already moving. → 18 lenders cut variable rates since the May hike → 40 lenders now advertise a variable rate under 6% → Bendigo dropped to 5.89% → The cheapest advertised rate in the country is 5.69% → APRA arrears on home loans 30 to 89 days behind sit at 0.49% → Investor loans with debt-to-income above six rose from 8.2% to 10.8% in a year What matters for property investors is simple: banks don’t start competing this hard unless they believe borrowers can still service debt and demand is resilient. That is exactly the kind of environment where professional data and a buyers agent matter. Download our no-cost Top Five Markets Report 2026 → https://ripe.house/five-markets Subscribe for more data-led Australian property analysis. #AustralianProperty #PropertyInvesting #BuyersAgent #RBA #HomeLoans #PropertyMarketAustralia This video is general information only and not financial or investment advice. Consider your own circumstances and seek professional advice.

The banks just called the RBA's bluff. Since the Reserve Bank hiked rates in May, 18 separate lenders have gone the other way and cut their variable rates. Not after a cut, after a hike. The people who price risk for a living have already moved. And the only ones still being told to wait are you. Stay with me because by the end, I'll show you exactly what the smart money is doing right now. And it is not sitting on its hands. Let's be clear about what happened. In May, the Reserve Bank raised the cash rate. The headlines said, tighten, wait, be careful. Then the lenders opened their books and did the opposite. 18 of them cut variable rates. One of the majors, AMP, cut fixed rates by up to half a % double the average cut across the market. And you don't cut fixed for half a point unless you are betting rates have peaked. That is the whole story in one move. Now, before I show you the receipts, 30 seconds on how we read a market because we don't guess. And we don't take a bank's word for it. Property selection is a science. On the demand side, employment, projects, lifestyle, population. On the supply side, new stock. Subtract supply from demand. And what is left is opportunity. The only number that actually matters. We run that exact equation across every one of the 15,286 suburbs in the country every single month. And we go four layers deep because a headline rate move means nothing until it hits an actual street. Layer one, the LGA, the economy underneath the suburb. Layer two, the suburb, our score yield vacancy. Layer three, the street, every sale map from raw coordinates. Layer four, the property itself, pressure tested against our own valuation. So when I tell you this is a window, it is not a vibe. It is four layers of data. Let's get into it. Here is what the banks actually did. 18 lenders cut variable rates since the May hike. 40 lenders now advertise a variable rate under 6%. Bendigo dropped to 5.89 and the floor, the cheapest advertised rate in the country right now, is 5.69%. That is a rate war. Banks do not start a price war for borrowers when they think rates are going up. They do it when they are fighting for the customers they expect to be very profitable on the way down. And before anyone says the borrowers are drowning, they are not. According to APRA, arrears on home loans 30 to 89 days behind sit at 0.49%, less than half of 1%. That is near a record low. The stress test everyone predicted after the rate hikes, it did not show up in the data. Households are paying their mortgages and the banks can see that, which is exactly why they are competing to lend more. Now here is the part the news will not put in a headline. The most sophisticated borrowers in the country are levering UP. APRA's data shows investor loans with a debt to income ratio above six jumped from 8.2% to 10.8% in a single year. For all borrowers, it went from 5.3 to 6.4. Translate that. The people with the most experience and the most to lose are taking on more leverage right now into this exact market. That is not fear that is positioning. That is, and it is not just the pros. The share of new owner occupier loans written with a deposit of 5% or less just hit a record high, 4.3% of all new owner occupier lending. Read those two facts together. First, home buyers are getting in with tiny deposits and investors are getting in with big leverage at the same time. The only cohort standing on the sidelines is the one being told by people with no skin in the