Column 8 · The Rub
The cash rate held. That is not your mortgage.
I do wish people would stop treating the cash rate as if it were a weather report for the household. It is an overnight rate between banks. It is not the thing on your statement, and it is certainly not the price of a house in a postcode you cannot afford.
What the Reserve Bank actually sets is the cost of money for a few hours. What you pay is a contract written years ago, plus a bank margin, plus whatever you borrowed against a dwelling that only works if wages, prices and luck keep agreeing with each other. Those are different instruments. Mixing them up is how a Tuesday press conference becomes a national mood.
Nobody went broke because the cash rate sat still for another meeting. They went broke because they treated a policy rate as a personal guarantee. If you want the household story, look at the debt, not the theatre.
Which, if we are being precise, is the rub.