Mortgage borrowing for new homes strong

The latest ABS housing finance data commenced on a positive note with total dwelling commencements up by 0.7 per cent in January.

“Most encouraging for our members is that mortgage borrowing for the construction of new housing was particularly strong, up by 3.1 per cent,” Matthew Pollock, National Manager of Housing and Economics said.

“Finance for First Home Buyers (FHB) has continued its positive trend rising again in January as a share of total finance commitments to 18 per cent,” he said.

“However while investor borrowing remained little changed from recent months, up by 1.1% in seasonally adjusted terms it’s fallen 6.7 per cent from a year earlier,”  Matthew Pollock said.

“Overall, despite a modest increase in the value of finance commitments in January the number of new dwelling commitments is down by more than 3,000 on the 12 month peak recorded in August last year,” Matthew Pollock said.