The traditional wisdom is that First Time Buyers are sitting out of the property markets, because prices are high, loans harder to get, and confidence is falling. Overall 11.6% of owner occupied loans are from FTB. We can look at the trend, showing the number of first time buyer loans each month, and the relative share compared with all owner occupied loans
The latest ABS data highlights the fact that in some states, especially NSW, FTB activity is very low (7%), whereas in WA its over 20% of owner occupied loans.
If we look at the relative share of FTB transactions we see that there are more FTB loans being written in WA and VIC than NSW.
But this is not the full story. As we already highlighted our household surveys have detected a significant rise in the number of FTB who are going directly into the investment market. We can estimate the proportion of FTB who are taking this route, using DFA data.
Now, if we make adjustments to the ABS data to take account of the trend we see that FTB are more active than might be thought. In fact the rate of activity has remained at about 9,500 loans each month since mid 2013. Its just that the ABS data does not capture the full statistics.
