Lending indicators

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This release is about new borrower-accepted finance commitments for housing, personal and business loans

Reference period
July 2023
Released
1/09/2023

Key statistics

In July 2023, new loan commitments (seasonally adjusted):

  • fell 1.2% for housing
  • rose 4.7% for personal fixed term loans
  • fell 21.5% for business construction (a typically volatile series) and fell 0.4% in trend terms
  • fell 5.1% for business purchase of property (a typically volatile series) but rose 0.7% in trend terms

Value of new borrower-accepted loan commitments (seasonally adjusted)

   Jul-2023 ($b)Month percent change (%)Year percent change (%)
Households
 Housing24.19-1.2-14.1
  Owner Occupier (a)15.57-1.9-17.5
  Investor (a)8.62-0.1-7.2
 Personal
  Fixed term loans2.304.79.2
Businesses
 Construction1.80-21.57.3
 Purchase of Property4.87-5.1-33.7
  1. Loan commitments for owner occupier, investor housing and personal fixed term loans exclude refinancing.

Housing finance: First home buyers

The number and value of new loan commitments to first home buyers has not been published this month due to data reporting issues. These series are temporarily suspended while the ABS and APRA work with data providers to resolve the issues as soon as possible. Please take caution when using the previous 12 months of first home buyer data.

Important data quality notes

Seasonal adjustment methods

Treatment of Buy Now Pay Later products in Personal finance

Personal finance: household goods series

  

Housing finance

In July 2023 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for total housing fell 1.2% to $24.2b, after a fall of 1.6% in June. It was 14.1% lower compared to a year ago.
  • for owner-occupier housing fell 1.9% to $15.6b and was 17.5% lower compared to a year ago
  • for investor housing fell 0.1% to $8.6b and was 7.2% lower compared to a year ago
  1. All series exclude refinancing

In July 2023 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of external refinancing:

  • for total housing rose 5.4% to a new record high of $21.5b. It was 21.8% higher compared to a year ago.
  • for owner-occupier housing rose 4.9% to a new record high of $14.6b. It was 19.2% higher compared to a year ago.
  • for investor housing rose 6.5% to $7.0b and was 27.4% higher compared to a year ago

Personal finance

In July 2023 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for total fixed term personal finance rose 4.7%, after a fall of 6.9% in June
  • for personal investment rose 42.1%
  • for road vehicles rose 1.3%
  • for travel and holidays rose 12.3% to the highest level since August 2018
  1. Any missing data points in the series above are not available for publication.
  1. Any missing data points in the series above are not available for publication.

Business finance

In July 2023 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for construction finance fell 21.5%, after a fall of 12.3% in June. In trend terms, it fell 0.4%.
  • for the purchase of property fell 5.1%, after a fall of 12.8% in June. In trend terms, it rose 0.7%.

These series can have volatile month-to-month movements in seasonally adjusted terms as they are strongly affected by small numbers of high value loans.

  1. Any missing data points in the series above are not available for publication.

Housing finance (detailed)

Value of new loan commitments by purpose (seasonally adjusted)

   Jul-2023 ($b)Month percent change (%)Year percent change (%)
Owner occupier
 Total housing (a)15.57-1.9-17.5
  Construction of dwellings1.48-5.7-35.3
  Purchase of newly erected dwellings0.93-1.2-13.8
  Purchase of existing dwellings12.10-0.4-14.5
 First home buyersnpnpnp
Investor
 Total housing (a)8.62-0.1-7.2

Number of new loan commitments by purpose (seasonally adjusted)

   Jul-2023 (No.)Month percent change (%)Year percent change (%)
Owner occupier
 Total housing (a)
  Construction of dwellings2 398-12.4-42.1
  Purchase of newly erected dwellings1 552-5.3-18.7
  Purchase of existing dwellings20 695-0.7-11.0
 First home buyersnpnpnp
Investor
 Total housing (a)
  1. Housing includes loan commitments for dwellings, purchase of residential land and for alterations and additions.
  2. There is no seasonally adjusted or trend data available for the number of owner occupiers or investors for total housing as the data was collected from July 2019.
  3. The "np" marker means that data item is "Not Published" this month (see note above pertaining to suppression of First Home Buyer data).

 

In July 2023 in seasonally adjusted terms, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for owner occupiers fell 1.9%, after a fall of 3.1% in June
  • for investors fell 0.1%, after a rise of 1.3% in June

  

In July 2023 in seasonally adjusted terms for owner-occupier housing, the value of new loan commitments:

  • for the purchase of existing dwellings fell 0.4% and was 14.5% lower compared to a year ago
  • for the construction of new dwellings fell 5.7% and was 35.3% lower compared to a year ago
  • for the purchase of new dwellings fell 1.2% and was 13.8% lower compared to a year ago
  1. For periods prior to July 2019, statistics on owner occupier commitments for residential land are modelled using data about the total value of commitments for residential land.
  2. Users can hide/unhide series in the graph by clicking the legend above (e.g. toggle the "purchase of existing dwellings" series for a closer look at the other purposes of owner occupier lending).

 

In July 2023 in seasonally adjusted terms for owner-occupier housing, the value of new loan commitments:

  • in Victoria fell 3.7%, in Queensland fell 3.6%, in Western Australia fell 3.9%, in South Australia fell 5.2%, in Tasmania fell 11.2%, in New South Wales fell 0.4%, in the Northern Territory fell 20.7% and in the Australian Capital Territory fell 0.7%

The Tasmania, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory series are smaller and typically more volatile.

  

In July 2023 in seasonally adjusted terms for investor housing, the value of new loan commitments:

  • in Victoria fell 2.6%, in New South Wales fell 0.8%, in South Australia fell 2.6%, in the Australian Capital Territory fell 6.0% and in Western Australia fell 1.4%
  • in Queensland rose 6.8%, in the Northern Territory rose 34.4% and in Tasmania rose 2.3%

The Tasmania, Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory series are smaller and typically more volatile.

In July 2023, in original terms:

  • the value of total new variable rate loan commitments funded in the month fell 11.1%
  • the value of total new fixed rate loan commitments funded in the month rose 4.2%
  1. A loan is considered funded once any portion of the funds is made available for the borrower to draw down according to the terms of the contract. This will occur after there is a borrower-accepted commitment to provide finance. Due to this timing difference, the value of loans funded in the month shown in this graph will generally not reconcile with the value of new borrower-accepted commitments for the month shown in the other graphs and download tables.
  2. Total fixed rate and total variable rate housing loans include their respective first home buyer loan components.

In July 2023 in original terms, average loan sizes for owner-occupier dwellings (including construction, purchase of new dwellings and existing dwellings):

  • rose 2.2% at the national level from $580k to $593k. It was 23.6% higher compared to the pre-pandemic average seen in February 2020.
  1. Please note that while the series graphed above are joined between the available data points, there may be missing data points in between which are not available for publication

First home buyers

The number and value of new loan commitments to first home buyers has not been published this month due to data reporting issues. These series are temporarily suspended while the ABS and APRA work with data providers to resolve the issues as soon as possible. Please take caution when using the previous 12 months of first home buyer data.

Data downloads

Housing Finance - Total

Data files

   

Housing Finance - Owner-occupiers

Data files

   

Housing Finance - Investors

Data files

  

Housing Finance - First home buyers

Data files

    

Table 26. Households; Housing finance; Non-residents; New loan commitments; Numbers and values

   

Personal Finance

Data files

   

Business Finance

Data files

Data cubes

Series ID concordance mapping

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 5601.0.

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