The RBA statistics released today reveals that housing lending has now reached a new milestone, overall reaching $1.4 trillion.In seasonally adjusted terms, owner occupied housing grew 0.44% and investment lending 0.99%. Investment lending accounted for more than 34% of all loans, a record (and is understated because owner occupied lending includes refinancing). Overall it is likely more new investment loans than owner occupied loans were written in the month. We will need to wait for the detailed figures to confirm this.
Looking at the monthly growth data, we see the continued relative momentum in investment lending, and this underscores the concerns of the OECD and other observers.
In 12 month terms, housing lending grew 7%, Personal Credit by 1.0% and business credit grew 4.3%.
Here is the RBA summary:
