Interest rates are on hold for now but economists expect the next move to be up. Home buyers are turning to fixed-rate mortgages in response to the steady rise in interest rates last year and predictions that rates will go higher this year. Mortgage broker AFG publishes a monthly mortgage index, which shows that the [...]

Although RBA watchers agree the next move is up, they are divided over whether rates will head north this half or next. Announcing yesterday’s widely expected interest rate reprieve, with the official cash rate kept on hold at 4.75 per cent, RBA governor Glenn Stevens said monetary policy was “appropriate in view of the general [...]