First home buyers, investors share in June housing market bounce

Lending figures for June 2019 indicate that several areas of the housing market are moving in the right direction.

“Both First Home Buyer and investor lending saw some positive gains during June, more evidence that we are in the early stages of a housing market recovery,” Master Builders Australia Chief Economist Shane Garrett said.

“First Home Buyers now occupy a larger share of the owner occupier home loan market than at any time since the start of 2012. During June, the FHB share increased to 28.9%,” he said.

“The value of residential loans to housing investors was also up during June, rising by 0.5% across Australia during the month. This is an important turning point because investor lending had fallen in each of the previous 11 months. However, the geographic reach of the investor upturn was limited,” Shane Garrett said.

“Combined with recent signs of life on the house price front, it does look like a real opportunity now exists to draw a line under the housing slump that has blighted so many parts of Australia. More rapid rollout of government infrastructure could be the decisive factor in ensuring that this occurs,” Shane Garrett said.

During June 2019, the value of investor housing loans saw the larger increase in the Northern Territory (+6.7%), followed by New South Wales (+2.7%) and Victoria (+0.6%). Tasmania (-8.3%) suffered the largest reduction followed by the ACT (-7.8%) and Western Australia (-5.2%). There were more modest reductions in South Australia (-2.6%) and Queensland (-1.1%).