Housing loans fell 4.1% in December

Media Release
Released
2/02/2024

The total value of new loan commitments for housing fell 4.1 per cent in December 2023, according to data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 

Owner-occupier loan commitments fell 5.6 per cent, while investor loan commitments fell 1.3 per cent. 

Mish Tan, ABS head of finance statistics, said: “While the value of investor and owner-occupier loans fell in the month of December, through the year growth was 20.4 per cent for investor loans and 7.4 per cent for owner-occupier loans.”

“The composition of total loan activity has changed since the data was first collected in 2019. The proportion of loans to investors has increased from 27.3 per cent in December 2019 to 35.5 per cent in December 2023,” Dr Tan said. 

The number of first home buyer loans fell 8.4 per cent in December 2023 but was 12.9 per cent higher compared to a year ago. Meanwhile, the value fell 5.5 per cent in the month but was 21.0 per cent higher compared to a year ago.

Housing finance loan commitments by property purpose and state, seasonally adjusted - December 2023
  Aus *NSWVicQldSAWATasNTACT
Owner-occupiers
 Value ($b) :16.85.25.03.31.01.80.20.080.4
 Value change ($m):-999-221-130-203-66-467-5-49
 Value % change ** :-5.6-4.1-2.6-5.8-6.2-2.53.3-5.5-11.5
Owner-occupier first home buyers
 Number change:-872-88-116-27817-9084-41
 Number % change ** :-8.4-3.7-3.7-14.12.6-6.35.65.8-14.6
Investors
 Value change ($m):-122-31-14-54-15514-6-16
 Value % change ** :-1.3-0.9-0.6-2.8-2.85.64.6-19.3 -7.3

* Total Australia levels do not necessarily equal the sum of states, due to independent seasonal adjustment

** All movements are on a month-to-month basis

† A smaller and more volatile series

Personal finance

The value of new loan commitments for total fixed term personal finance fell 2.4 per cent to $2.3 billion. This was driven by a fall of 4.9 per cent in lending for the purchase of road vehicles.

More information is available in Lending Indicators, Australia.

Media notes

  • All figures are seasonally adjusted unless noted otherwise.
  • Lending Indicators reverted to concurrent seasonal adjustment in the October 2022 release. This method of seasonal adjustment will result in revisions to historical data each month. For more information, see the methodology page.
  • When reporting ABS data, you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
  • For media requests and interviews, please contact the ABS Media Team via media@abs.gov.au (8:30am-5pm AEDT Mon-Fri).
  • Subscribe to our media release notification service to get notified of ABS media releases or publications upon their release.
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