Number of FHB loans down in final months of 2012

Despite the historically low cash rate, the end of 2012 saw the release of some positive domestic data, according to RFi’s final Australian Mortgage Market Wrap report for 2012.

The report shows housing credit aggregates continued to trend upwards in October 2012, increasing from $1,258.1 billion in September 2012 to $1,262.5 billion.

RFi says the rise was driven by increases in both owner-occupied and investment housing credit aggregates, which increased by 0.3% to $854.1 billion and 0.5% to $408.4 billion respectively.

“Total lending commitments increased by 1.8% to $21,564.1 billion between September and October 2012, which was driven by a 5.5% increase in investment housing lending commitments to $7,701 billion. However, this rise was partially offset by a 0.2% decline in owner-occupied lending commitments to $13,862.8 billion.”

The 3-year fixed lending rate decreased from 5.70% to 5.55% between September and October 2012, as the proportion of fixed rate home loans also decreased, from 13.70% to 13.50%.

The combined market share of the big four rose from 80.3% to 85.2%, though RFi says the increase was largely due to APRA’s reclassification of Bankwest as a division of CBA, which officially went into effect on 1 October 2012.

As a result of the reclassification, CBA’s share of the owner-occupied home loans market grew from 23.5% in September to 28.4% in October 2012, while ANZ, NAB and Westpac’s penetration of the market remained steady.

The proportion of first home buyer (FHB) loans decreased from 19.4% to 18.7% between September and October 2012 and the average home loan size for FHBs decreased by 0.4% to $288,000 between September and October 2012, while the average home loan size for non-FHBs decreased by 0.5% to $301,400 in the same period.