Lending indicators

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This release is about new borrower-accepted finance commitments for housing, personal and business loans

Reference period
August 2020
Released
9/10/2020

Key statistics

In August 2020, new loan commitments (seasonally adjusted):

  • rose 12.6% for housing
  • fell 12.5% for personal fixed term loans
  • fell 42.9% for business construction (typically volatile series)

Important data quality note

Economic and Financial Statistics (EFS) collection

Lender type breakdowns

Coronavirus (COVID-19) effects in August data

Suspension of trend series

Update to seasonal adjustment methods

  

New borrower-accepted loan commitments (seasonally adjusted)

 August 2020 ($b)Month percent change (%)Year percent change (%)
Households   
 Housing21.2912.619.3
  Owner Occupier (a)16.2813.629.2
  Investor (a)5.019.3-4.6
 Personal   
  Fixed term loans1.38-12.5-17.5
Businesses   
 Construction1.31-42.9-57.3
 Purchase of Property3.6015.3-31.3

(a) Loan commitments for owner occupier, investor housing and personal fixed term loans exclude refinancing.

 

Home loan commitments rose sharply again in August

  

Road vehicles drove the fall in personal fixed term loans, following three consecutive months of growth

  

Business lending for construction fell for the second consecutive month in seasonally adjusted terms, reaching the lowest level since July 2013

Housing

New loan commitments by purpose (seasonally adjusted)

 Aug-2020Month percent changeYear percent change
Value($b)(%)(%)
 Owner occupier   
      Total housing (a)16.2813.629.2
  Construction of dwellings2.0519.243.9
  Purchase of newly erected dwellings1.174.020.7
  Purchase of existing dwellings11.5412.823.6
      First home buyers5.0218.438.1
 Investor   
      Total housing (a)5.019.3-4.6
    
Number(No.)(%)(%)
 Owner occupier   
      Total housing (a) (b)---
  Construction of dwellings4 67922.934.0
  Purchase of newly erected dwellings2 4197.020.2
  Purchase of existing dwellings22 8279.013.7
      First home buyers12 30217.737.3
 Investor   
      Total housing (a) (b)---

(a) Housing includes loan commitments for dwellings, purchase of residential land and for alterations and additions.
(b) There is no seasonally adjusted or trend data available for the number of owner occupiers or investors for total housing as the data was collected from July 2019.

 

Both owner occupiers and investors displayed the third consecutive month of growth in August, following historically large falls in May

  

Loan commitments for the purchase of existing dwellings have risen sharply since May, while purchase of residential land (a) also displayed a noteworthy growth for the series

(a) For periods prior to July 2019, statistics about owner occupier commitments for residential land are modelled using data about the total value of  commitments for residential land.

* Hide/unhide series in the graph by clicking the legend above (toggle the 'purchase of existing dwellings' series for a closer look at the other purposes of owner occupier lending).

 

Large increases were seen across all states and territories, apart from Northern Territory. Borrower-accepted commitments in August reflect customer demand in earlier months

  

Queensland and Victoria drove the increase in commitments for investment housing in August

  

The value of loan commitments accepted by owner occupiers remains significantly higher than loan commitments accepted by investors

First home buyers

In August 2020:

  • the number of owner occupier first home buyer loan commitments increased 17.7% in seasonally adjusted terms
  • the number of first home buyer loan commitments for investment purposes accounted for 4.2% of all first home buyer commitments, in original terms
  • owner occupier first home buyer loan commitments accounted for 34.2% of all owner occupier commitments (excluding refinancing), in original terms

 

Additional information

  

New loan commitments to owner occupier first home buyers (number)

 First home buyer loan commitmentsFirst home buyer ratioFirst home buyer ratio
  NumberDwellingsHousing
Total Australia12 10041.7%34.2%
 New South Wales2 76635.7%30.6%
 Victoria3 86148.6%38.0%
 Queensland2 52739.2%33.0%
 South Australia 69332.5%26.0%
 Western Australia1 63252.0%43.1%
 Tasmania 26537.8%27.0%
 Northern Territory 10258.6%53.4%
 Australian Capital Territory 25434.2%30.1%

 

The number of first home buyer commitments rose for the third consecutive month in August

  

All states and territories, apart from Northern Territory, displayed rises in owner occupier first home buyers in August

  

Data downloads

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data cubes

Series ID concordance mapping

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 5601.0.

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