Today the RBA released their financial aggregates for April. Total credit grew by 0.4%, or 4.9% over the past year. Housing lending rose 0.5%, or 6.5% over the past year, personal credit fell by 0.1% or 1.5% in the past 12 months, and business lending rose 0.4% or 3.1% over the past year.
There was $1.1 bn of mortgages switched between investment and owner occupation categories in the month.
The 12 month view shows investor lending still accelerating, whilst business lending and other personal credit continues lower.
The more volatile measures shows a fall in housing lending and a rise in business lending.
The aggregates show total housing was $1.66 trillion, up 0.5% of $8.1 billion. Within that owner occupied loans rose 0.55% of $6 billion and investor loans grew 0.36% or $2.1 billion.
The proportion of lending to productive business fell again, so housing lending is still dominating the scene to the detriment of the broader economy and sustainable long term growth.
The RBA noted:
Following the introduction of an interest rate differential between housing loans to investors and owner-occupiers in mid-2015, a number of borrowers have changed the purpose of their existing loan; the net value of switching of loan purpose from investor to owner-occupier is estimated to have been $52 billion over the period of July 2015 to April 2017, of which $1.1 billion occurred in April 2017. These changes are reflected in the level of owner-occupier and investor credit outstanding. However, growth rates for these series have been adjusted to remove the effect of loan purpose changes.
