Two thirds of all bank lending is for housing

Newly-released statistics show almost 64% of all bank lending is for housing, and total credit has grown 4% over the year

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Newly-released statistics show almost 64% of all bank lending is for housing, and total credit has grown 4% over the year.

Australian Prudential Regulations Authority’s statistics show the value of total housing loans on authorised deposit-taking institutions’ books is $1,245.6 billion, up from $1,236.9 billion in March.

Almost 64% of all bank lending is for housing, of which 21.4% is investment housing. 

CBA has the largest portfolio with $339 billion, then Westpac with $312 billion, NAB with $208 billion and ANZ at $190 billion.

Non-bank lender ING was in fifth place, with $19 billion.

CBA has 27.9% of owner occupied loans and Westpac has 32.4% of investment loans, which came to $419,712 million across all ADI’s, up from $416,015 million in March.

The Reserve Bank of Australia also released lending statistics, which show total housing lending stand seasonally adjusted at $1,359.7 billion, and total credit grew by 0.4% in April, which, seasonally adjusted, comes to 4% for the year.

Within that, seasonally adjusted lending for owner occupied housing grew 0.5% over the month, or 4.3% over the past year, whilst investment housing lending grew 0.8%, or 7.6% over the past 12 months.

RP Data has also released its most recent tracking data for the housing market.
 
Over the month to 25 May, there were 248,905 unique properties listed for sale across the country. Of these, 44,848 were new listings over the previous four weeks with the remaining 204,057 being re-listed properties.
 
The number of new listings was at its highest level since the week ending 13 April, and re-listed properties were at their highest level since the four weeks ending 12 January.
 
As a result, total property listings are at their highest level since the four weeks ending 16 March.
 
Throughout the individual capital cities, new property listings are generally higher than a year ago with Canberra the only exception. Sydney in particular is seeing a significant rise in new listings which are 37.5% higher than they were a year ago.

“As we head into a seasonally quieter period for housing market activity it will be interesting to see whether new and total listings continue to rise,” RP Data said.
 
“In recent weeks we have noted that auction clearance rates have trended lower despite the fact that volumes remain high, particularly high for this time of year. We would expect new listing activity will slow over the coming months and ramp back up in spring.
 
“It will be interesting to watch because sales volumes are still trending higher as are housing finance commitments and if new listings fall we may see even greater demand for the available stock in certain markets throughout the coming months.”
 

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