Tag Archives: housing
Home loans fall in Australia month on month
Home loans to owner occupiers in Australia fell 7.3% in January but those approved to investors increased by 1.6%, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The number of loans to owner occupiers for the construction and purchase of new homes declined by 5.3% and the number of loans to owner occupiers buying established homes, excluding refinancing, fell by 7.9%. ‘Lending figures indicate that the investor market performed a little stronger. Lending to investors building or constructing new homes, however, was slightly weaker during the month but remained markedly stronger than this time a year ago,’ said Housing Industry Association economist, Geordan Murray. He pointed out that these results follow the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority’s December letter to lending institutions outlining their intention to increase the level of supervisory oversight of mortgage lending. The letter detailed some specific areas of concern noting high LVR loans, fast growth in lending to investors, and mortgage affordability in a (future) higher interest rate environment. ‘It is too early to determine whether APRA’s communication has had an impact in January. It will be interesting to observe the lending figures over the next few months to see how lenders respond,’ explained Murray. ‘It is important that the new home building sector is not pushed back into a credit squeeze whereby a lack of readily available finance becomes an industry wide problem,’ he added. A breakdown of the figures show that on an annual basis the total number of owner occupier loans for new housing in January 2015 increased only in Tasmania which saw a 67.3% year on year rise. In New South Wales the number of loans fell by 3%, in Queensland by 6.9T, in the Australian Capital Territory by 9.9%, in Western Australia by 12.3%, in Victoria by 12.4%, in the Northern Territory by 17.6% and in South Australia by 23.5%. Continue reading
TSI’s London Housing Market Overview
Over the past few years, the surge in house prices have been shocking Londoners from Shepherd’s Bush to Stratford. Many potential buyers have hoped that signs of a slowdown that emerged in the summer would continue, and so it has … Continue reading
Property prices still falling in London, but five year outlook suggests rise of 30%
Residential property prices are continuing to fall in London while Scotland and Northern Ireland outperform the rest of the UK, according to the latest monthly survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Some 28% of surveyors in London reported falling prices in February, the sixth monthly decline in a row. But RICS members are positive about the outlook for prices and believe that they will rise by 30% in the next five years. Values increased across the rest of the country due to the demand supply imbalance, the report shows. There was also price growth across the South West and the South East. The upward shift in prices is in part being driven by a decline in the number of houses coming onto the market in most parts of the UK and 8% more surveyors saw declines in new supply in February and new instructions have now fallen in six out of the last seven months. Price expectations over the next three months increased from a net balance of 3% to 10% and despite anecdotal evidence suggesting that political uncertainty may be leading to the election effect of vendors sitting on the fence, RICS member forecast for house price growth over the next 12 months stand at 2.4%, up from 1.8% in January. Notable exceptions to the trend however were London, the North of England and the East Midlands, which may indicate that political uncertainty may be weighing more heavily on specific markets, the report suggests. It points out that as supply dips, the national picture of demand appears to be stabilising after seven consecutive months in which the headline reading for new buyer enquiries was negative and a slightly more upbeat trend is also emerging in more parts of the country than previously was the case. In the lettings market, demand continues to rise, while instructions to let remained unchanged following 10 months of steady declines. This is being reflected in the medium term view for rents with respondents, on average, envisaging an increase of 2.6% over the coming year. ‘It is encouraging that that the negative trend in buyer enquiries appears to be dissipating, perhaps in part because of growing confidence that the cost of borrowing will stay lower for longer, but more worrying that instructions to sell property continue to drop,’ said Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist. ‘This very modest reversal in the demand picture is already being felt in the key measures of price expectations highlighting the extent of the challenge policy makers will face in addressing the housing crisis in the aftermath of the coming general election,’ he explained. ‘Even in London, where the key RICS indicators remain in negative territory, there is a strong view in the survey that property will become even more unaffordable over the medium term. Respondents suggests, on average, that house prices will rise by a further 30% in the capital over the next five years,’ he added. Continue reading
