Don’t go overboard about a housing rebound after the April housing finance stats showed a bigger than expected 4.8% rise in new home loans.
It is an encouraging sign and comes after the stronger than forecast rise in retail sales in April.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures for April showed that in seasonally adjusted terms, the total value of dwelling finance commitments excluding alterations and additions rose 3.8% to 47,347.
The number of commitments for owner occupied housing finance was up 4.8%, the biggest rise since March 2009, as the first home buyers scheme started kicking in.
The bureau also revised March’s decline to 1.1% from an earlier reported 1.5% fall.
The value of investment lending dropped by 1.6% in April to $6.04 billion, while the value of owner-occupied loans grew 6.3% in the month to $13.8 billion.
The ABS figures showed there was a strong 5.2% jump in finance for owner-occupied housing (excluding refinancing of existing mortgages).
And the number of finance approvals for the purchase of new homes rose 9.2% in the month, following a rise of 2.8% in March 2011.
And there was also a 5.1% rise in approvals for the purchase of existing dwellings, including refinancings.
The Reserve Bank yesterday opted to leave its key cash rate unchanged for a sixth consecutive meeting, the longest pause since mid-2007.
Home loans in Queensland bounced back in April, rising 6.2%, after the 2.6% drop in March, on a seasonally adjusted basis.
New home loans in New South Wales rose 2.7% and were up 4.1% in Victoria and Western Australia.
Tasmania’s new home loans rose 2.3% but they fell 1.2% in South Australia.
Home loans in the Australian Capital Territory jumped 8.8% after a 5.2% fall in March (it is a very small and volatile market).
The number of first-home buyer loans as a percentage of total home loans, though, dropped to 15.8% in April from 16% in March in original terms (not seasonally adjusted).
At the same time, the average loan size for first-home buyers rose $5,900 to $285,400 in April.
For all owner-occupied home loans, the average sized jumped $4,100 to $289,600 in the same period.
That’s a sign of confidence.
