2014 - JUNE15

Yet another blow for first home buyers

First home buyers are again taking another blow, with recent data released by the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) indicating that the number of first home buyers has fallen considerably in the past year.

New buyers represented 12.3% of owner-occupied finance commitments in April 2014 – down from 14.3% in April 2013 and 12.6% in March 2014.

The average loan size for first home buyers was $300,900, which marked a 4% increase on the year before but a 0.6% decline on the previous month.

There were also 52,109 dwelling commitments for owner-occupied housing, with 83% being for the purchase of established dwellings, 12% for the construction of new dwellings and 5% for the purchase of new dwellings.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics also reported $27.9 billion of finance commitments for May – up 22.6% annually and 1.7% monthly.

The owner-occupied share of those commitments was $16.9 billion, which marked a 15.8% annual increase and 1.4% monthly increase.

Finance commitments for investors reached $11 billion, which was a 34.9% jump on the year before and a 2.3% rise on the previous month.

(Article sourced from: rebonline.com.au)

Follow: Subscribe to this post's comments