The latest housing finance data from the ABS to June 2015 shows continued growth, especially in refinancing and investment lending. Excluding refinance, 52.8% of all loans written in the month were for investment purposes – another record. No sign of any impact of tighter regulation showing yet. Total lending in the month (trend) was $32.2 billion (up 0.16% from last month), of which owner occupied loans were $12.2 billion (down 0.18%), refinance $6.1 billion (up 0.21%) and investment lending $13.7 billion (up 0.75%). The ABS rolls in refinance into the owner occupied numbers, which overall went up 0.1%.
Within owner occupied loans, the trend changes clearly show that the purchase of new dwellings continues to grow the strongest, Refinancing was up as a percentage of all lending to 33.2%. Another record.
The rate of change of owner occupied refinancing is slowing, along with construction lending and purchased of established dwellings.
The number of first home buyer commitments as a percentage of total owner occupied housing finance commitments rose to 15.9% in June 2015 from 15.6% in May 2015. First time buyers were active, with the original number of first time owner occupied borrowers up 6.8%, to 8,737. In addition, we overlay the DFA household survey data of investor first time buyers, which rose by 3.5% in the month to 4,453. Whilst the bulk were in Sydney we are continue to see a rise in investors in other states. As a result the total number of first time buyer transactions was 13,191, up 5.65%.
