The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) collects data on housing finance commitments made by significant lenders. These figures include mortgage 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. Since late 2017 / early 2018, a very clear downtrend has emerged in the monthly figures of both the number and value of home loans approved.
The ABS has released housing finance figures for November which, while better than expected, are still quite lacklustre. Total approvals decreased by 0.9%, down from October’s revised figure of +2.1%. On an annual basis, the growth rate recovered a little from October’s revised rate of -8.5% to record -7.9 in November. When refinancing approvals are removed, approvals fell by 0.6% over the month and by 10.0% since November 2017.
The figures had little effect on financial markets. By the end of the day, the 3-year ACGB yield had slipped by 1bp to 1.76% while 10-year and 20-year yields remained unchanged at 2.28% and 2.67% respectively. The Aussie dollar finished the afternoon session down about 0.4 US cents at 71.60 US cents.