CPI Lands In Four Hours: What It Costs You | Morning Brief 29 Jul 2026

The June CPI lands at 11:30am today — the last inflation print the RBA sees before it meets on 10-11 August. The core number rose to 3.6% last month, and 25 basis points on a $500,000 loan is about $80 a month. Here is what to watch, and where the data says to be positioned. FREE: The Five Market Environments — how to read demand, supply and tenure before you spend a dollar: https://ripe.house/brief-cpi-day WHAT'S IN TODAY'S BRIEF 00:00 The number that decides your mortgage 00:29 June CPI: 11:30am, the last print before August 01:10 The story: prices falling while housing inflation leads 02:20 What's actually inside the inflation number 03:00 Two years, six moves, net zero — the RBA round trip 03:40 What 25 basis points actually costs you 04:20 The yield clock on existing stock 05:10 System Watch: Bennett Springs WA 6063 06:20 System Watch: Earlville QLD 4870 07:30 Bennett Springs street-by-street: sold price 08:10 Bennett Springs street-by-street: rental yield 08:50 Bennett Springs street-by-street: owner-occupier mix 09:30 Bennett Springs street-by-street: social housing 10:10 Your questions: are the "big greens" a buy signal? 11:20 Sign-off TODAY'S NUMBERS • Trimmed mean inflation 3.6% (up from 3.4%) — headline 4.0% and falling • National home values -0.4% in June, the biggest monthly fall since December 2022 • Sydney -1.2%, Melbourne -1.0% — but regional Australia +0.3%, regional WA +3.7% for the quarter • Housing is the largest single contributor to CPI at +6.5%; rents in the CPI +3.6% • Annual rent growth 5.9% and accelerating; vacancy 1.6%, every capital under 2% • National gross yield 3.7% against investor mortgage rates in the mid 6s • Negative gearing grandfathered on existing stock from 1 July 2027 SYSTEM WATCH Bennett Springs, WA 6063 — City of Swan, 18km north-east of Perth. 98th percentile R-Score, 82.3% owner-occupier, average sale price up 58% over eight quarters ($699K to $1.103M) with no quarter-on-quarter decline in the series, 5.47% yield signal, 0.40% long-run vacancy. Earlville, QLD 4870 — southern Cairns corridor. 100th percentile R-Score, 56.3% owner-occupier, 5.69% trailing gross yield, +37% over eight quarters, zero new supply in the last year. Two structurally sound markets, almost opposite investments. The R-Score is a filter, not a recommendation — which is the whole point of the street-level work. SOURCES ABS Consumer Price Index, Australia (May 2026) and the ABS release calendar; RBA cash rate statistics and Board meeting schedule; Cotality Home Value Index July 2026 (published 1 July); Cotality Rental Review Q2 2026 (published 9 July); ABS Census SA1 tenure; Ripehouse Advisory research engine for suburb and street-level intelligence. Ripehouse Advisory is a national buyers-agent and property research firm. This is general information only and not personal financial advice — it does not consider your objectives, situation or needs. Consider whether it is appropriate for you and seek professional advice. #AustralianProperty #PropertyInvesting #CPI #RBA #InterestRates #PerthProperty #CairnsProperty

Four hours from now, one number decides what your mortgage costs for the rest of the year. 11.30 this morning, June inflation, the last print the Reserve Bank sees before it meets on August 10th. Last month, the core number went the wrong way. 25 basis points on a $500,000 loan is $80 a month. Later, I'll show you a street where the yield doubles. Let's go. So here is what to actually watch at 11.30 because the headline number is a decoy. Headline inflation is 4% and falling. The trimmed mean, the core number the Reserve Bank actually sets rates on is 3.6. And in May, it went up from 3.4. Direction beats level. If that core number rises again today, an August hike becomes the base case. If it falls, they hold. The market is already trading like the money got more expensive. National home values fell 0.4% in June, the biggest monthly drop since December 2022. Sydney down 1.2, Melbourne down one, but regional Australia went the other way up 0.3 for the month and regional Western Australia up 3.7 for the quarter. There is no national housing market. There is a rate sensitive market and a rate resilient one. And here is the part almost nobody connects. The single biggest contributor to the inflation number that might trigger a hike is housing at six and a half percent. Rents inside the CPI are running at 3.6. So the thing that makes the Reserve Bank raise your rate is the same thing filling a landlord's bank account and your rent growth 5.9% and accelerating vacancy 1.6 every capital under two, which brings me to today's story. And it is a genuinely strange one. The Bureau of Statistics is about to publish a number where housing is the largest single contributor, six and a half percent, while Kotality is simultaneously publishing that home values are falling at the fastest monthly rate in three and a half years. Prices falling, housing inflation leading the index, both true at the same time this morning. Most people will read one and ignore the other. The gap between those two facts is where the opportunity is. Look at what's actually inside the inflation number. Housing, six and a half percent. Food, 3.3. Transport, 3.3. And underneath housing, the two components, new dwellings up 5.6 and electricity up 21.1%. So when you hear inflation is being driven by housing, that is not house prices. The CPI does not measure house prices. It measures rents and the cost of building. The two things a property investor is on the right side of. And here's the context for today's print. The Reserve Bank cut three times in 2025 from $4.35 down to $3.60. Then it reversed the whole lot, three hikes this year, February, March and May, and back to $4.35, exactly where it started. Two years, six moves, net zero. If you made a buying decision on a rate forecast in that window, you were wrong twice, which is the argument for buying on fundamentals rather than on a forecast. Put the decision in dollars because that's the only unit that matters. 25 basis points on a $500,000 loan is about $80 a month. On a million dollar loan, $160. But that's the small number. The real cost is borrowing capacity. Every repricing cuts what the next buyer can pay, which lands right as the spring selling season opens. That's not a reason to wait. It's a reason to know exactly what you're buying before the queue changes. And there is a deadline underneath all of this. National gross yields are 3.7% up from three and a half. Investor mortgage rates are in the mid sixes on a $750,000 pr