The latest RBA Statement of Monetary Policy, released today includes a range of comments on housing, and mortgage lending. Clearly the RBA wants to continue to show there is nothing to see here. High absolute household debt and rising defaults hardly gets a mention! They also choose to use the APM home price data rather than CoreLogic’s indices (which would show higher growth). They say the average outstanding housing interest rate has fallen by around 35 basis points this year.
However, they do warn that if growth in housing demand does not continue to keep pace with the scheduled large increases in supply, it would place downward pressure on housing prices and rents and increase the risk of off-the-plan apartment purchases failing to settle.
They also warn that if the broader housing market was to weaken substantially, consumption growth may be lower than currently expected in response to wealth and income effects. Consumer price inflation would also be affected as housing costs comprise a significant share of household expenditure.
As expected, private dwelling investment was strong over the year to the June quarter. The value of residential building approvals has reached record levels as a share of GDP and the amount of work in the pipeline has edged higher. Accordingly, dwelling investment is likely to contribute to growth for some time yet. However, the large amount of work in the pipeline raises concerns that some locations could become oversupplied, particularly in inner-city areas where a lot of highdensity housing is planned. This could lead to settlement failures by off-the-plan purchasers and a general reduction in rents and prices.
Conditions in the established housing market have eased relative to a year ago, although some indicators suggest that conditions may have strengthened over recent months. In particular, housing price growth has picked up noticeably in Sydney and Melbourne, where auction clearance rates have also increased to high levels.
However, the number of auctions and housing market turnover more generally are lower than they were last year and properties are, on average, taking longer to sell. While housing credit growth has also declined over the past year, loan approvals data suggest that lending to investors has increased a little over recent months. Housing market conditions remain weak in Perth, where prices of both apartments and detached dwellings have declined further over the past year.
Housing credit growth has eased to an annualised pace of around 6 per cent. Growth in net housing debt is about 1 percentage point below growth in housing credit due to ongoing strong growth in deposits in mortgage offset accounts.
While the slowing in housing credit growth and loan approvals has been reasonably broad based, there remains some divergence in the pace of growth across states (Graph 4.11). The slowing in loan approvals has been particularly pronounced in Western Australia; while loan approvals in NSW have also eased over the past year, they continue at a pace noticeably above the national average.
Growth in credit advanced to investors has increased a little in recent months, consistent with a pick-up in investor housing loan approvals. In contrast, growth in credit advanced to owner-occupiers has eased a little recently. The current level of approvals is consistent with housing credit growth continuing at around its current pace.
The slowing in housing loan approvals over the past year is consistent with the decline in turnover in the housing market. It also reflects slower growth in average dwelling prices and a decrease in the average loan-to-valuation ratio. The latter follows the introduction of measures by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) to strengthen lending standards. Another factor that may be contributing to the easing in housing credit growth over the past year is an increase in the share of off-the-plan purchases, which are yet to flow through to the demand for credit. These transactions do not involve a mortgage at the time the dwelling is purchased off the plan, but add to the stock of housing credit when a mortgage is provided to the purchaser upon completion of the dwelling.
Around half of the August cash rate reduction was passed through to most advertised housing lending rates. The average outstanding housing interest rate has fallen by around 35 basis points this year and is likely to decline a little further as maturing loans are replaced with loans on lower The lowest available variable interest rates are more than 50 basis points below the average outstanding interest rate and, reflecting the lower rates on offer, the level of refinancing activity remains relatively high. One bank has recently introduced a loan product with the interest rate margin fixed at 249 basis points above the cash rate.
Recent strength in dwelling investment, particularly the construction of higher-density dwellings, has played a role in supporting the rebalancing of economic activity away from the resources sector.
Low interest rates and increases in housing prices have encouraged a substantial increase in the supply of apartments and the pipeline of residential work yet to be done has increased to historically high levels. While this pipeline should support growth in dwelling investment over the next year or so, the outlook for dwelling investment beyond this period is uncertain.
There is concern about the risk of an oversupply of apartments in specific geographical areas, such as inner-city areas of Melbourne and Brisbane. Outside Western Australia, the supply of housing has to date largely been absorbed by population growth. However, if growth in housing demand does not continue to keep pace with the scheduled large increases in supply, it would place downward pressure on housing prices and rents and increase the risk of off-the-plan apartment purchases failing to settle. If the broader housing market was to weaken substantially, consumption growth may be lower than currently expected in response to wealth and income effects. Consumer price inflation would also be affected as housing costs comprise a significant share of household expenditure.
