Housing lending lifts sharply and deferrals decline...property market to rise

Home Lending surges

CoreLogic reported that housing prices rose in October, and the latest lending figures suggest there’s more to come.

Investor lending rose another 5 per cent in September, but remains modest overall.

But homebuyers are driving the rebound, with owner-occupier lending rising to historical highs, excluding refinancing.

First homebuyer numbers understandably fell in Victoria, but are flying elsewhere.

In Queensland first homebuyer numbers are up 70 per cent year-on-year; in New South Wales, it’s a 40 per cent increase.

Overall first home buyers accounted for 35 per cent of owner-occupier commitments as numbers soared beyond 13,000 to an 11-year high.

The market is clearly still being driven by homebuyers, not investors.

While there was a decline in homebuyer lending in Victoria, elsewhere activity has surged.

With responsible lending obligations to be wound back, the growth in mortgage lending suggests we should expect to see double-digit gains for house prices in most capital cities over the coming 12 months.

Deferrals decline as repayments return

Some bright news: mortgage deferrals have begun to decline sharply, down to 48,000 mortgage accounts (being 3 percent of total mortgage accounts) by 19 October.

The outstanding deferral packages now equate to about 4 percent of the mortgage book by value.

Peter King, CEO of Westpac said he was ‘very encouraged’ with the remarkable drop, with 97 percent of customers now making repayments.

Westpac provided in its investor pack a very useful graphic showing the share of expired mortgage deferral packages that have returned to repayments versus those opting to extend for an extra 4 months.

Source: ASX

Still a way to go here, but good to see.

Notably there is more work to be done with small business loans and it’s ‘earlier days’ (King) in that part of the business.

About Pete Wargent

Pete is a Chartered Accountant, Chartered Secretary and has a Financial Planning Diploma. Using a long term approach to building businesses, investing in equities, & owning a portfolio he achieved financial independence at the age of 33. Visit his blog