First-time Buyers Rise in Housing Market while Lender Competition Heats Up

By February 12, 2018Buying, News

First-home buyers are the rising force in the residential property market, according to the latest NAB survey of industry professionals.

The December Quarter survey found that first-home buying owner-occupiers and investors accounted for nearly 39% of new housing sales and 31.5% of established housing sales.
The proportion of first-home-buying owner-occupiers continued a trend of their rising market share in both new and established housing since late 2016.
Nearly 29% of new housing sales and 22% of second-hand housing in the December quarter were to owner-occupiers who were first-home buyers.
The market share of first-home buying investors declined for new housing to 9.9% and was flat at 9.6% for existing housing.
The NAB survey catches first-home buyers the Australian Bureau of Statistics misses by counting investors and those not requiring a mortgage from an institution.
The survey suggests first-home buyers are replacing foreign buyers, whose share of new property dropped to a six-year low of 8.4% and 5.5% of established housing.

Lender Competition Heats Up As RBA Holds.

Competition in the home loan market is heating up despite the Reserve Bank leaving the official interest rate on hold at the first meeting of the year, according to Mozo.com.au.

The comparison site found that 20 lenders have slashed at least one variable rate home loan since the previous Reserve Bank meeting in December. 

“This week’s rates decision is the 16th consecutive hold by the Reserve Bank, yet we’ve seen a flurry of lenders bucking the trend by slashing variable interest rates in recent months,” says Mozo Director Kirsty Lamont. “Competition in the home loan market is intensifying as lenders try to ramp up their loan books.”

The average cut for an owner-occupier variable rate loan is 20 basis points. However, investors paying principal and interest repayments enjoyed the biggest discount from lenders, with an average cut of 33 basis points.

“There have been more cuts to variable rates for investors in recent months than we’ve seen in well over a year,” says Lamont.

Despite the winding back of investor rates, Mozo says it’s owner-occupiers that banks are chasing the hardest right now.

Join 25,010 locals

Get the latest articles straight to your inbox.