South Africa's home loan holders are keeping up their bond repayments at the best rate in years. Experian's Consumer Default Index (CDIx) — a balance-weighted index tracking rolling default behaviour across Home Loan, Vehicle Loan, Personal Loan and Credit Card accounts — shows the Home Loan CDI improving for two straight quarters, even as some unsecured credit products move in the opposite direction.
What are South Africa's home loan default statistics right now?
The most recent published figure is Q1 2026: the Home Loan CDI fell to 1.86%, down 16% year-on-year from 2.21% a year earlier (Experian CDIx, published 15 June 2026). That follows an even larger improvement in Q4 2025, when the Home Loan CDI fell 20% year-on-year, from 2.17% to 1.73% (Experian CDIx, published 18 March 2026) — alongside a 9% relative improvement in the national Composite CDI, from 4.04% to 3.68% over the same period.
| Quarter | Home Loan CDI, prior year | Home Loan CDI, current | Year-on-year change | Published |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4 2025 | 2.17% | 1.73% | −20% | 18 Mar 2026 |
| Q1 2026 | 2.21% | 1.86% | −16% | 15 Jun 2026 |
A lower CDI means fewer accounts are rolling into fresh default over the measured period — it is a repayment-behaviour index, not a count of loans in arrears or a forecast of future defaults.
Why are home loan defaults falling while other debt gets riskier?
Not every credit product moved the same way in Q1 2026. While the Home Loan CDI improved 16% year-on-year, retail loan defaults rose 11% year-on-year to 17.18%, and personal loan defaults worsened 4% over the same period (Experian CDIx, published 15 June 2026). Experian's own reporting frames this as mid-to-high-affluence consumers — who hold the vast majority of mortgage debt — actively protecting their primary residence ahead of unsecured credit, a pattern consistent with a rate environment that has made every kind of debt more expensive to carry since May 2026.
There is a genuine caveat inside the same data. Default rates among 20–29-year-olds fell from 7.21% to 5.79% year-on-year — on its face, good news — but Matiisetso Madito, Experian South Africa's Chief of Credit Bureau Services, called that improvement “a hollow victory” if it reflects younger consumers being excluded from the credit system altogether rather than repaying more reliably. Read a market default rate alongside your own credit profile, not as a substitute for it.
Does a falling default rate mean it's easier to get a home loan approved?
No — and this is the distinction worth holding onto. The Experian CDIx measures how existing mortgage holders are repaying, not how banks assess new applications. Every home loan application in South Africa is still tested against the National Credit Act's affordability rules, and an instalment above roughly 30% of gross monthly income remains a common lending red flag, prime rate or default trend notwithstanding — prime is currently 10.50% (SARB), with the next MPC decision due 23 September 2026. If you want to know what a bank would actually consider affordable for you, run your numbers on our free home loan affordability calculator rather than reading a national default statistic as a personal approval signal.
If you are already a bond holder and want to know what your options are before a missed payment becomes a real problem, bond.co.za's guide to what happens if you fall into bond arrears sets out the National Credit Act process step by step — repossession is a last resort, not an automatic outcome of a missed instalment.
What to watch next
- Whether Experian’s Q2 2026 CDIx — due roughly two months after quarter-end — confirms the improving home loan trend continues into winter.
- Whether retail and personal loan defaults keep worsening even as mortgages hold up, a sign of increasingly two-speed household finances.
- The SARB’s 23 September 2026 rate decision: a hike would test whether this repayment discipline holds at a higher instalment.
Figures as at 15 September 2026. Home loan, retail loan, personal loan and youth default figures are Experian Consumer Default Index (CDIx) data for Q4 2025 (published 18 March 2026) and Q1 2026 (published 15 June 2026), as reported by EBnet.co.za, IOL Property and SME Tech Guru — see Sources. Prime rate from SARB via lib/rates.ts, re-verified 12 Sep 2026. Last verified: 2026-09-15.