Total housing loans up almost 7% annually

The residential loan book across all authorised deposit-taking institutions has risen to more than $1.55 trillion

Total housing loans up almost 7% annually

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Total domestic housing loans across all authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) have risen by $100bn (or 6.9%) to more than $1.55 trillion in the 12 months prior to September this year.

These figures come from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) which examined residential and commercial property exposures as well as new housing loan approvals.

The regulator found that the number of housing loans had risen by 2.5% to more than 5.8 million across ADIs with more than $1bn in mortgages (which accounted for 98.7% of all such loans as of September this year).

Owner occupier loans rose by $74.8bn (or 7.9%) to $1.01trn and account for 65.5% of the total loan book across all larger ADIs. Likewise, investor loans increased by $25.5bn (or 5.0%) to $535.3bn and account for 34.5% of the total loan book.

The average loan size also increased from $253,000 to $264,000 between September 2016 and September 2017, marking a steady increase that has been occurring for at least five years.

The number of interest only-loans has fallen for the first time in five years and now sits with a value of $542.3bn (or 34.5% of the total residential loan book).

ADIs with greater than $1bn of residential loans approved $387.2bn of new loans in the 12 months prior to September 2017, an increase of $15.1bn (or 4.1%) from the year before. Of these new approvals:
  • $255.3bn (65.9%) were owner occupied
  • $131.9bn (34.1%) were investor
  • $54.9bn (14.2%) had an LVR greater than 80% and less than or equal to 90%
  • $28.4bn (7.3%) had an LVR greater than 90%
  • $117.0bn (30.2%) were interest-only
APRA’s statistics also looked at commercial lending for ADIs with total commercial property exposures sitting at $267.3bn as of 30 September 2017. This was an increase of $6.2bn (or 2.4%) from the year before.

Domestic commercial property exposures were recorded at $229.9bn or 86.0% of all commercial property exposures.

Breaking this down by category, officer property and retail represented $80.2bn (or 30.0%) and $65.4bn (or 24.5%) of total commercial exposures respectively.

Related stories:

Residential lending up $7bn

Risks arise from patchy commercial lending laws

37% of Australians want house prices to drop

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