Winners in June housing market bounce

First Home Buyers and investors share in benefits from lower interest rates and relaxed mortgage rules.

LENDING figures for June indicate that several areas of the housing market are moving in the right direction.

Master Builders Australia Chief Economist Shane Garrett said that according to the latest ABS Housing Finance data, both First Home Buyer and investor lending saw some positive gains during June, presenting more evidence that we are in the early stages of a housing market recovery.

“First Home Buyers now occupy a larger share of the owner occupier home loan market than at any time since the start of 2012,” Mr Garrett said.

“During June, the FHB share increased to 28.9 per cent, the value of residential loans to housing investors was also up during June, rising by 0.5 per cent across Australia during the month.

“This is an important turning point because investor lending had fallen in each of the previous 11 months.

“However, the geographic reach of the investor upturn was limited,” Mr Garrett said.

“Combined with recent signs of life on the house price front, it does look like a real opportunity now exists to draw a line under the housing slump that has blighted so many parts of Australia.

“More rapid roll-out of government infrastructure could be the decisive factor in ensuring that this occurs.”

During June 2019, the value of investor housing loans saw the larger increase in the Northern Territory (+6.7 per cent), followed by New South Wales (+2.7 per cent) and Victoria (+0.6 per cent). Tasmania (-8.3 per cent) suffered the largest reduction followed by the ACT (-7.8 per cent) and Western Australia (-5.2 per cent). There were more modest reductions in South Australia (-2.6 per cent) and Queensland (-1.1 per cent).