Lending indicators

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

Reference period
March 2022
Released
4/05/2022

Key statistics

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • rose 1.6% for housing
  • fell 0.4% for personal fixed term loans
  • rose 23.6% for business construction (a typically volatile series)
  • fell 16.8% for business purchase of property (a typically volatile series)

Value of new borrower-accepted loan commitments (seasonally adjusted)

  Mar-2022 ($b) Month percent change (%) Year percent change (%)
Households      
 Housing 33.28 1.6 11.1
  Owner Occupier (a) 21.57 0.9 -2.2
  Investor (a) 11.71 2.9 48.4
 Personal      
  Fixed term loans 2.29 -0.4 27.4
Businesses      
 Construction 2.84 23.6 7.1
 Purchase of Property 6.29 -16.8 22.4

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

Important data quality note

Housing finance revisions this month

Seasonal adjustment methods

Suspension of trend series

Treatment of Buy Now Pay Later products in Personal finance

     

Housing finance

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for total housing rose 1.6% to $33.3b following a fall of 3.5% in February after reaching a record high of $33.9b in January
  • for owner-occupier housing rose 0.9% to $21.6b and was 2.2% lower compared to a year ago. 
  • for investor housing rose 2.9% to a record high of $11.7b.

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of external refinancing:

  • for total housing rose 4.6% and was 28.2% higher compared to a year ago
  • for owner-occupier housing rose 4.0%, slowing down from an 11.5% increase last month
  • for investor housing rose 5.7% and was 25.0% higher compared to a year ago

Personal finance

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for fixed term personal finance fell 0.4%
  • for the purchase of road vehicles fell 2.2%
  • for personal investment fell 3.3%

Business finance

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for total construction finance rose 23.6% after a fall of 40.2% in the previous month.
  • for the purchase of property continued to fall 16.8% after a fall of 3.0% in the previous month. 

Housing finance (detailed)

New loan commitments by purpose (seasonally adjusted)

  Mar-2022 Month percent change Year percent change
Value ($b) (%) (%)
 Owner occupier      
  Total housing (a) 21.57 0.9 -2.2
   Construction of dwellings 2.22 -0.5 -38.6
   Purchase of newly erected dwellings 1.26 5.4 -20.1
   Purchase of existing dwellings 16.58 0.5 9.0
  First home buyers 5.10 5.9 -25.2
 Investor      
  Total housing (a) 11.71 2.9 48.4
       
Number (No.) (%) (%)
 Owner occupier      
  Total housing (a) (b)      
   Construction of dwellings 4 139 -4.7 -49.6
   Purchase of newly erected dwellings 2 301 8.3 -26.8
   Purchase of existing dwellings 26 060 -0.2 -6.7
  First home buyers 10 394 4.2 -32.8
 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.

 

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • to owner-occupiers rose 0.9%, recovering from a 4.7% fall last month.
  • to investors rose 2.9% to a record high of $11.7b.

  

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms for owner-occupier housing, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for the purchase of existing dwellings rose 0.5%, and was 9.0% higher compared to a year ago.
  • for the purchase of new dwellings rose 5.4%, but was 20.1% lower compared to a year ago
  • for the construction of new dwellings fell 0.5%, and was 38.6% lower compared to a year ago

(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).

 

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms for owner-occupier housing, the value of new loan commitments:

  • in New South Wales rose 1.3%, in the Australian Capital Territory rose 18.1%, in Queensland rose 1.9%, in Victoria rose 1.0%, in South Australia rose 3.6%, in Western Australia rose 1.4%, in Tasmania rose 2.8%, and in the Northern Territory rose 4.9%.

  

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms for investor housing, the value of new loan commitments:

  • in Queensland rose 6.7%, in New South Wales rose 1.6%, in South Australia rose 8.5%, in Western Australia rose 5.9%, in the Australian Capital Territory rose 14.9%, in Victoria rose 0.7%, in the Northern Territory rose 32.4% (a smaller, typically volatile series), and in Tasmania rose 2.3%.

In March 2022, in original terms:

  • the value of new variable rate loan commitments funded in the month rose 27.9%
  • the value of new fixed rate loan commitments funded in the month fell 9.8%

*A loan is considered funded once any portion of the funds is made available for the borrower to draw down according to the terms of the contract. This will occur after there is a borrower-accepted commitment to provide finance.

**Total Fixed rate and Total Variable rate housing loans include first home buyer loans

In March 2022 in original terms, the value of average loan sizes for owner-occupier dwellings (which includes construction and the purchase of new and existing dwellings):

  • rose 1.2% at the national level from $593k to $600k.
  • rose in New South Wales, in Victoria, in South Australia and in Tasmania.
  • fell in Queensland, and in Western Australia.

*Please note that while the series graphed above are joined between the available data points, there may be missing data points in between which are not available for publication

First home buyers

In March 2022 in seasonally adjusted terms for owner-occupier first home buyers, the number of new loan commitments:

  • rose 4.2% at the national level, and across all states and territories except Tasmania.

  • in New South Wales rose 12.5%, in Queensland rose 5.9%, in Western Australia rose 6.5%, in the Australian Capital Territory rose 44.2%, in Victoria rose 1.1%, in the Northern Territory rose 19.6%, and in South Australia rose 0.5%. 

  • in Tasmania fell 3.2%.

Additional information

  

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

  First home buyer loan commitments
Number
First home buyer ratio
Dwellings (a)
First home buyer ratio
Housing (b)
Total Australia 10 996 31.7% 26.7%
 New South Wales 2 488 28.0% 23.2%
 Victoria 3 371 34.9% 29.7%
 Queensland 2 180 29.4% 24.4%
 South Australia 605 25.7% 21.1%
 Western Australia 1 840 38.9% 34.4%
 Tasmania 165 27.9% 21.9%
 Northern Territory 60 24.7% 22.1%
 Australian Capital Territory 287 33.3% 29.3%

(a) Dwellings includes loan commitments for construction of dwellings, purchase of newly erected dwellings and purchase of existing dwellings.

(b) Housing includes loan commitments for dwellings, purchase of residential land and for alterations and additions.

  

Data downloads

Housing Finance - Total

Data files

   

Housing Finance - Owner-occupiers

Data files

   

Housing Finance - Investors

Data files

  

Housing Finance - First home buyers

Data files

    

Table 26. Households; Housing finance; Non-residents; New loan commitments; Numbers and values

   

Personal Finance

Data files

   

Business Finance

Data files

Data cubes

Series ID concordance mapping

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 5601.0.

Post-release changes

4 May 2022: Trend series removed from the data downloads, published in error.

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