The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collects data on housing finance commitments made by significant lenders and their figures include secured (mortgage) finance commitments for the construction or purchase of owner-occupied dwellings and investment properties. It has some overlap with the RBA’s monthly private sector credit statistics which also includes investor lending and owner-occupier lending.
The ABS has released housing finance figures for June and they were lower than market expectations. Longer term bond yields finished the day higher despite slightly lower US yields in overnight markets; 3-year bond yields remained unchanged at 2.11% and 10 year yields added 2bps to 2.68%.
The number of approvals fell by 1.1% over June and by 5.0% on an annual basis. When approvals for refinancing is removed, the number of approvals fell by 0.5% over the month and by 5.6% over the year. In dollar terms, total loan approvals excluding refinancing fell by 1.2% for the month. On a year-on-year basis, the total value fell by 8.4%.