.jpg)
A recent report revealed that while housing affordability is marginally better off than a year ago, the property market has continued to weaken overall.
The Adelaide Bank/REIA Housing Affordability Report for the December quarter 2018 showed a decline in housing affordability nationally, but a very slight year on year improvement from the corresponding quarter of 2017.
“The slight down-tick in housing affordability nationally for the quarter is disappointing, but when we look at the year on year figures, housing affordability has improved with the proportion of income required to meet monthly loan repayments decreasing by 0.4 percentage points,” said Kasehagen, Adelaide Bank head of third-party banking.
However, the report showed that rental affordability declined in the majority of states and territories, only showing slight improvements in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
Housing affordability also declined across the nation, with Victoria and the Northern Territory proving the only exceptions.
While the report showed a national 3.3% increase in the number of loans, quarter on quarter figures are still down.
“We are still looking at a decrease of 9.4% compared with the same quarter last year and we have also seen a decrease in average loan size to first home buyers (FHB) to $337,500,” explained Darren Kasehagen.
While the size of FBH loans might be shrinking, Queensland was the only state or territory that failed to show an increase in quantity of FHB loans. Victoria exhibited the highest figure.
“A 3.8% increase in the number of FHBs during the quarter was also to be welcomed, but when compared year on year to the December quarter 2017, we are actually looking at a longer term decrease in FHBs of 5.8%,” Kasehagen concluded.
