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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Two sets of figures published a day apart describe the same pressure from two ends. On Tuesday 4 August 2026, The Adviser reported credit bureau Equifax's Consumer Pulse for the June quarter, which shows mortgage hardship cases up 5.3 per cent and the size of the loans Brisbane borrowers are asking about falling by more than in any other capital. On Wednesday 5 August, the same publication reported that the Australian Financial Complaints Authority received 119,949 complaints in 2025-26, the most since it opened, with complaints about financial difficulty up 17 per cent.
Neither number is a Queensland-only figure, and neither says that borrowers are failing in large numbers. Together they show households asking for help sooner, borrowing less, and disputing more, at a point where the cash rate sits at 4.35 per cent after three increases in 2026.
Equifax Consumer Pulse, June quarter 2026, and AFCA figures for 2025-26, both as reported by The Adviser on 4 and 5 August 2026.
What the credit bureau measured
Equifax sees a home loan before it exists. When a borrower applies, the lender makes an enquiry on the borrower's credit file, and the bureau counts those enquiries. They are an early signal of demand: they move weeks before a loan is approved and months before it settles and appears in official lending statistics.
According to The Adviser's report of the June quarter Consumer Pulse, mortgage enquiry volumes in May and June were 12.5 per cent lower than a year earlier. Equifax describes those two months as the period after the changes to property tax announced in the federal Budget, and enquiries from first home buyers fell 15 per cent over the same stretch. The national average amount enquired about fell by $8,000, a drop of 1.1 per cent.
Related readQueensland has the lowest home loan arrears of the large states: S&PThe bureau also receives hardship information from lenders, because a hardship arrangement is recorded on a credit report while it is in place. On that measure mortgage hardship cases rose 5.3 per cent, and hardship on other kinds of credit rose 5.6 per cent. The Adviser's report does not publish the number of mortgages in hardship nationally, so the figure describes a direction, not a size.
Kevin James, Equifax's chief solutions officer, is reported as saying that borrowers appear to be seeking assistance earlier than they once did. That reading matters for how the figure is understood. A rise in hardship cases can mean more households in trouble, and it can also mean more households speaking to their lender before they miss a repayment. The data cannot separate the two.
Brisbane borrowers are asking for less
The Queensland detail in the report is about the size of the loan, not the count. Equifax found the average value of a mortgage enquiry in Brisbane fell by $15,000, the largest drop among the capitals named. Sydney's fell by $12,000 and Melbourne's by $11,000. Perth was the only major capital where the average enquiry value rose.
Equifax Consumer Pulse, June quarter 2026, as reported by The Adviser on 4 August 2026. Perth was the only major capital where the value rose.
A smaller enquiry can come from several places at once. Each rise in the cash rate lowers the amount a lender will approve for the same income, because the lender tests repayments at a rate above the one it charges. A buyer who qualified for one figure in January qualifies for less in June. Buyers also choose to borrow less when repayments cost more, and a market with softer prices needs smaller loans to buy the same home. The Equifax figure does not say which of these weighs most in Brisbane, only that the city leads the fall.
Related readQueensland owner-occupiers now borrow $751,000 on average, a recordFor a Queensland seller, the practical meaning is that the pool of money behind each buyer has shrunk a little. For a buyer, it is a reminder that a borrowing limit worked out early in the year may no longer hold.
Hardship is not confined to home loans
The bureau's hardship rates by product show where the strain sits. Mortgages are the largest debt most households carry, but they are not where hardship is most common.
| Kind of credit | Accounts in hardship | Change in demand for new credit |
|---|---|---|
| Personal loans | 1.10% | Down 0.4% |
| Car loans | 0.82% | Down 6.6% |
| Credit cards | 0.14% | Down 4.8% |
Equifax Consumer Pulse, June quarter 2026, as reported by The Adviser on 4 August 2026.
The report names Victoria as the state with the highest mortgage hardship rate, at 0.78 per cent. It gives no equivalent rate for Queensland, so no comparison between the two states can be drawn from it.
The pattern across products is one of caution. Demand for every kind of new consumer credit in the table fell over the year. Households under pressure are not, on these figures, borrowing their way through on cards and personal loans; they are applying for less of everything.
A record year at the ombudsman
The Australian Financial Complaints Authority, known as AFCA, is the free external dispute service every lender, insurer and super fund must belong to. A customer who cannot settle a complaint with a financial firm can take it there.
The Adviser reported on 5 August that AFCA received 119,949 complaints in the 2025-26 financial year, its highest total and the third year in a row above 100,000. Banking and finance made up the largest part, with 66,971 complaints, up 23 per cent on the year before. Within that, complaints about financial difficulty rose 17 per cent and complaints about credit reporting rose 22 per cent.
Related readQueensland refinancing enquiries fall 8.8 per cent in a yearFinancial difficulty complaints are the ones closest to the mortgage story. They arise when a customer has asked a lender for help and is unhappy with the answer: the request was declined, went unanswered, or was followed by a default notice or collection activity. AFCA's published explanation of these complaints says it handles them through a streamlined process and resolves most by negotiation or a conciliation conference between the customer and the lender.
Deborah Jenkins, AFCA's chief customer officer, is quoted by The Adviser as saying that "every complaint represents someone's experience". The authority resolved about 43 per cent of complaints before they needed a formal decision, and Savings.com.au, which also reported the figures, puts the compensation and refunds secured since AFCA began in 2018 at about $2.6 billion, across roughly 690,000 complaints.
The published total covers every financial product. Neither report gives a separate count for home loans, so the 17 per cent rise should be read as covering credit of all kinds, with mortgages as one part of it.
How a hardship request works
A borrower's right to ask for help does not depend on the lender's goodwill. Under the national credit law, a borrower who cannot meet repayments can tell the lender so, and the lender must consider changing the loan.
A lender must answer a hardship request in writing
Moneysmart, the federal government's consumer finance site, says a lender must write to the borrower within 21 days with the outcome of a hardship request. If the answer is no, the borrower can ask for the reason, use the lender's internal complaints team, and then take the matter to AFCA at no cost.
Moneysmart lists the usual forms of help as a change to the loan terms, or a temporary pause or reduction in repayments. It also names the National Debt Helpline, on 1800 007 007, as the route to a free financial counsellor who can deal with the lender on the borrower's behalf.
The credit report matters here. A hardship arrangement is recorded while it runs, which is how Equifax can count them. That record is the reason some borrowers hesitate. It is also the reason the bureau's data picks up people who ask early, before any repayment is missed.
What lenders and borrowers are watching next
The next dates are close. The Reserve Bank Board meets on Tuesday 11 August to decide whether the cash rate stays at 4.35 per cent. The major banks then report: Commonwealth Bank's full-year results and quarterly updates from the other three majors fall in the first half of August, and each normally discloses the share of its home loans that are 90 days or more behind. Those figures are harder evidence of stress than enquiry counts, because they measure repayments actually missed.
On 14 August the Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes Lending Indicators for the June quarter, which will show how many home loans were actually written in Queensland while enquiries were falling.
Until then, the two readings of early August say something measured. More borrowers are raising their hand, and more disputes are reaching the ombudsman, but the hardship rates Equifax reports remain around or below 1 per cent of accounts for every product it lists. For a Queensland household finding repayments tight, the figures carry one plain piece of information: asking a lender for help is common, it follows a set process, and there is a free referee if the answer seems wrong.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
