Lending indicators

Latest release

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

Reference period
September 2024

Key statistics

In September 2024, new loan commitments (seasonally adjusted):

  • fell 0.3% for housing
  • rose 2.1% for personal fixed term loans
  • fell 8.2% for business construction (a typically volatile series) but rose 1.9% in trend terms
  • rose 2.9% for business purchase of property (a typically volatile series) and rose 1.7% in trend terms

Final release of the monthly Lending Indicators publication

This is the final release of the monthly Lending indicators publication. The new quarterly publication will be released in February 2025 for the December Quarter 2024 reference period.

For more detail, see Upcoming changes.

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

 Sep-2024 ($b)Month percent change (%)Year percent change (%)
Households 
 Housing30.21-0.318.9
  Owner Occupier (a)18.640.113.1
  Investor (a)11.57-1.029.5
 Personal 
  Fixed term loans2.812.116.1
Businesses 
 Construction2.98-8.228.3
 Purchase of Property7.082.920.8

 

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

Important data quality notes

Seasonal adjustment methods

Updates to seasonal adjustment in September 2024

Treatment of Buy Now Pay Later products in Personal finance

Housing finance data quality

Personal finance data quality

Housing finance

In September 2024 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for total housing fell 0.3% to $30.2b, after a rise of 2.1% in August. It was 18.9% higher compared to a year ago.
  • for owner-occupier housing rose 0.1% to $18.6b and was 13.1% higher compared to a year ago
  • for investor housing fell 1.0% to $11.6b but was 29.5% higher compared to a year ago
  1. All series exclude refinancing

In September 2024 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of external refinancing:

  • for total housing rose 2.1% to $16.4b but was 11.9% lower compared to a year ago
  • for owner-occupier housing rose 3.5% to $10.4b but was 17.3% lower compared to a year ago
  • for investor housing fell 0.4% to $6.0b and was 0.6% lower compared to a year ago

Personal finance

In September 2024 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for fixed term personal finance rose 2.1%, after a rise of 2.1% in August
  • for road vehicles rose 0.7%
  • for personal investment rose 3.1%
  1. Any missing data points in the series above are not available for publication.
  1. Any missing data points in the series above are not available for publication.

Business finance

In September 2024 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for construction finance fell 8.2%, after a rise of 7.7% in August. In trend terms, it rose 1.9%.
  • for the purchase of property rose 2.9%, after a rise of 2.1% in August. In trend terms, it rose 1.7%.

These series can have volatile month-to-month movements in seasonally adjusted terms as they are strongly affected by small numbers of high value loans.

  1. Any missing data points in the series above are not available for publication.

Housing finance (detailed)

Value of new loan commitments by purpose (seasonally adjusted)

 Sep-2024 ($b)Month percent change (%)Year percent change (%)
Owner occupier 
 Total housing (a)18.640.113.1
  Construction of dwellings1.731.712.0
  Purchase of newly erected dwellings1.04-0.28.7
  Purchase of existing dwellings14.710.313.2
 First home buyers5.21-3.38.8
Investor 
 Total housing (a)11.57-1.029.5

Number of new loan commitments by purpose (seasonally adjusted)

 Sep-2024 (No.)Month percent change (%)Year percent change (%)
Owner occupier 
 Total housing (a) 
  Construction of dwellings2807-0.47.0
  Purchase of newly erected dwellings1628-0.1-0.4
  Purchase of existing dwellings22406-0.14.1
 First home buyers9686-3.22.0
Investor 
 Total housing (a) 

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

(a) 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 September 2024 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • to owner occupiers rose 0.1%, after a rise of 2.4% in August
  • to investors fell 1.0%, after a rise of 1.8% in August

In September 2024 in seasonally adjusted terms for owner-occupier housing, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for the purchase of existing dwellings rose 0.3% and was 13.2% higher compared to a year ago
  • for the construction of new dwellings rose 1.7% and was 12.0% higher compared to a year ago
  • for the purchase of new dwellings fell 0.2% but was 8.7% higher compared to a year ago
  1. For periods prior to July 2019, statistics on owner occupier commitments for residential land are modelled using data about the total value of commitments for residential land.
  2. Users can hide/unhide series in the graph by clicking the legend above (e.g. toggle the "purchase of existing dwellings" series for a closer look at the other purposes of owner occupier lending).

     

In September 2024 in seasonally adjusted terms for owner-occupier housing, the value of new loan commitments:

  • in Western Australia rose 3.6%, in the Australian Capital Territory rose 3.7%, in the Northern Territory rose 20.0%, in Tasmania rose 3.3% and in New South Wales rose 0.1%
  • in Queensland fell 1.7%, in Victoria fell 0.9% and in South Australia fell 1.0%

The Tasmania, Northern Territory, and Australian Capital Territory series are smaller and typically more volatile.

In September 2024 in seasonally adjusted terms for investor housing, the value of new loan commitments:

  • in Queensland fell 3.7%, in the Australian Capital Territory fell 15.7%, in Victoria fell 0.7% and in Western Australia fell 0.1%
  • in New South Wales rose 1.6%, in South Australia rose 7.5%, in Tasmania rose 18.2% and in the Northern Territory rose 9.0%

The Tasmania, Northern Territory, and Australian Capital Territory series are smaller and typically more volatile.

In September 2024, in original terms:

  • the value of new variable rate loan commitments funded in the month fell 3.6%
  • the value of new fixed rate loan commitments funded in the month rose 26.0%, however the series still remains at historically low levels. It was 33.7% lower compared to a year ago.
  1. 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. Due to this timing difference, the value of loans funded in the month shown in this graph will generally not reconcile with the value of new borrower-accepted commitments for the month shown in the other graphs and download tables.

In September 2024 in original terms, average loan sizes for owner-occupier dwellings (including construction, purchase of new dwellings and existing dwellings):

  • rose 0.9% at the national level from $636k to $642k
  1. 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 September 2024 in seasonally adjusted terms for owner-occupier first home buyers, the number of new loan commitments:

  • at the national level fell 3.2% to 9 686, after a 0.6% rise in August. It was 2.0% higher compared to a year ago.
  • in Queensland fell 9.2%, in New South Wales fell 3.6% and in Victoria fell 0.4%
  • in the Australian Capital Territory rose 18.0%, in South Australia rose 1.5%, in Western Australia rose 0.5%, in Tasmania rose 1.7% and in the Northern Territory rose 5.7%

Additional information

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

 First home buyer loan commitments
Number
First home buyer ratio (a) -
Dwellings (b)
First home buyer ratio (a) -
Housing (c)
Total Australia950436.6%31.5%
New South Wales218933.5%29.0%
Victoria308241.5%37.0%
Queensland187732.4%27.2%
South Australia62236.9%29.7%
Western Australia124438.3%31.8%
Tasmania18035.0%30.7%
Northern Territory5431.0%29.0%
Australian Capital Territory25643.6%40.1%

a. The ratios in the table above are calculated against overall owner-occupier loans, including both OO FHB and OO non-FHB loans. They are not calculated against all housing loans, which would also include investor lending.

b. Dwellings includes loan commitments for construction of dwellings, purchase of newly erected dwellings and purchase of existing dwellings.

c. Housing includes loan commitments for dwellings, purchase of residential land and for alterations and additions.

Upcoming changes

The transition from a monthly to a quarterly release has provided an opportunity to improve the useability and interpretability of the publication. These changes include:

  1. The introduction of seasonal adjustment for many series where there are now sufficient observations available (i.e. number of investor loans). Additional state and territory series have also been seasonally adjusted in cases where this improves the useability of the series. 
  2. The headline publication concept will change from new borrower accepted loan commitments for ‘Housing’ to new borrower accepted loan commitments for ‘Dwellings’ where ‘Dwellings’ represents ‘Construction of New Dwellings’, ‘Purchase of New Dwellings’ and ‘Purchase of Existing Dwellings’. This differs to the previous headline concept of ‘Housing’ which included ‘Dwellings’ plus ‘Purchase of Residential Land’ and ‘Alterations and Additions’. Residential land and Alterations and Additions will still be available as separate series. 
  3. A new non-first home buyer series. Previously, this could only be produced by manually by subtracting number and value of first home buyer commitments from total owner occupier commitments. 
  4. The sub-purpose categories for personal fixed-term finance have been collapsed into ‘Purchase of Road Vehicles’ and ‘Other’ purposes. It can be difficult for lenders to accurately reflect the purpose of personal loans, particularly if they are unsecured. Because of this, reporting is not always consistent across lenders, resulting in a higher proportion of misclassifications. 
  5. The removal of the personal revolving credit series. This series was commonly misinterpreted as the amount of money being lent while the reporting concept for personal revolving credit was in fact “new and increased credit limits”.

These changes (as they will be reflected in the publication download tables) are detailed in the ‘Series ID concordance mapping’ under the Data Cube section below. This detail is being provided to help users prepare for the new quarterly format.

Future release dates are tentatively scheduled as follows:

December Quarter 2024 - Wed 12th February 2025
March Quarter 2025 - Wed 14th May 2025
June Quarter 2025 - Wed 13th August 2025
September Quarter 2025 - Wed 12th November 2025

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

Housing finance - Non-residents

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.

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