 Increase in number of housing approvals
Housing finance commitments neared $19 billion in January. The figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a rise of 3.5 per cent in January from December.
Many economists had been predicting a rise of 4 per cent, and this increase is encouraging for the property market.
The total value of housing finance commitments rose 0.7 per cent to $18.88 billion; housing finance commitments feed directly into the Reserve Bank of Australia's credit aggregates data.
Many of the new home loan approvals went to first homebuyers, who now make up 26.5% of the total housing finance market. The increase to the first home owner grant and lower interest rates are thought to be the overriding factor in the increase.
In a breakdown of the data, the number of finance approvals to build houses rose a seasonally adjusted 2.5 per cent in January from December and the number of approvals to buy newly built houses fell 1.4 per cent. The number of approvals for the purchase of established houses increased 3.9 per cent.
|