Australia home loans drop 4.1% in October
EditorialRoom 7th December 2021
The value of owner-occupied home loans in Australia stood at A$19.84 billion in October, down 4.1 percent compared to the previous month, according to statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
That missed forecasts for an increase of 1.0 percent following the 2.7 percent decline in September.
New investor loan commitments was up 1.1 per cent to near record levels in October after gaining 1.4 percent in September.
“The value of new loan commitments for investor housing has grown for 12 consecutive months, reaching $9.7b in October 2021. This was the highest level since the all-time high in April 2015” ABS head of Finance and Wealth, Katherine Keenan, said.
“While the value of investor loan commitments has grown 90 per cent over the past year, the number of investor loans only accounted for 33 per cent of all new loan commitments for housing in October” she added.
Overall home loans were worth A$29.57 billion, falling 2.5 percent on month. On a yearly basis, owner occupied loans increased by 15.1 percent, investment lending skyrocketed 89.6 percent and overall lending soared 32.2 percent.
(Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics)
Meanwhile, house prices in Australia advanced 5.0 percent on quarter in the third quarter of 2021, slowing from 6.7 percent in the previous three months. On a yearly basis, house prices increased by 21.7 percent, up from 16.8 percent in the second quarter, ABS said.
The total value of Australia’s 10.7 million residential dwellings rose A$487.0 billion to A$9,259.2 billion in the September quarter and the mean price of residential dwellings was $863,700, up from $821,700 in the June quarter.
“The total value of residential dwellings in Australia surpassed $9 trillion for the first time. The value of Australia’s dwelling stock has risen by nearly $1 trillion in the past six months. By comparison, the previous increase of just over $1 trillion took 15 months, rising from $7.2 trillion in the December quarter 2019 to $8.4 trillion in the March quarter 2021” Head of Prices Statistics at the ABS Michelle Marquardt commented.
The ABS also said that the weighted average of the eight capital cities Residential Property Price Index: rose 5.0% this quarter and 21.7% over the last twelve months.
Capital city Residential Property Price Indexes rose in Sydney (+6.2%), Melbourne (+3.6%), Brisbane (+6.1%), Adelaide (+5.9%), Perth (+2.0%), Canberra (+6.0%), Hobart (+8.2%), and Darwin (+1.6%), this quarter. (The cities are listed in order of their contribution to the quarterly result for the eight capital cities.)
Capital city Residential Property Price Indexes rose in Hobart (+25.7%), Sydney (+25.4%), Canberra (+25.2%), Brisbane (+19.7%), Melbourne (+19.5%), Adelaide (+19.0%), Perth (+15.7%), and Darwin (+13.7%), over the last twelve months.
Price indexes published by the ABS provide summary measures of the movements in various categories of prices over time. They are published primarily for use in Government economic analysis. Price indexes are also often used in contracts by businesses and government to adjust payments and/or charges to take account of changes in categories of prices.