The week that was in property

Earlier this week the Reserve Bank (RBA) released financial aggregates data for September 2016.

According to the data, total credit rose by 0.4% over the month to be 5.4% higher year-on-year, its slowest rate of annual growth since September 2014.

Monthly data shows a 0.5% rise in housing credit, a -0.1% fall in other personal credit and a 0.2% increase in business credit.

Year-on-year housing credit has increased by 6.4%, other personal credit is -1.3% lower and business credit is 4.7% higher.

Housing credit is rising at its slowest annual pace since June 2014, other personal credit has seen its largest year-on-year fall since May 2012 and business credit is increasing at its slowest annual pace since December 2014.

Focusing specifically on housing credit; owner occupier credit grew 0.5% over the month while investor credit rose by 0.6% and year-on-year the figures were 7.3% and 4.8% respectively.

The monthly growth in owner occupier credit in September was the slowest since May 2015 while the monthly change in investor credit was the highest since August 2015.

The data shows a subtle shift in mortgage demand away from owner occupiers and toward investors.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released their September 2016 building approvals data earlier this week.

The data showed that over the month there were 18,945 dwellings approved for construction which was the lowest monthly number of approvals since November 2015.

Dwelling approvals fell by -8.7% over the month to be -6.4% lower year-on-year.

Although dwelling approvals are lower over the month and year they remain at extremely high levels on an historic basis. 

The 18,945 approvals consisted of 9,711 houses and 9,234 units approved for construction and it was the first time in three months there were more houses approved than units.

Over the month, house approvals increased by 1.7% however, they were -1.9% lower year-on-year.

Unit approvals recorded a sharp fall of -17.5% over the month and were -10.7% lower year-on-year.

Unit approvals tend to be much lumpier than houses and if the recent past is any guide there is a chance that the October numbers may show a rebound.

Earlier this week the Reserve Bank (RBA) Board decided to keep official interest rates on hold at 1.5%.

Although the latest inflation data shows that inflation is well below the target range, the RBA noted that it expects the inflation rate to gradually improve over the next two years.

CoreLogic collected results for almost 87% of the 2,253 capital city auctions last week.

2,253 auctions were held across the combined capitals, falling from 2,680 the previous week while clearance rates also slipped lower, recorded at 74.4% from 78.1%. 

Melbourne’s auction clearance rate was recorded at 77.5% last week, down from 80.6% over the previous week while the number of auctions fell significantly from 1,377 to 632 due to the spring racing carnival.

Sydney’s auction clearance rate also fell from 82.6% the previous week to 80.5% last week.

Auction volumes were higher over the week in Sydney with 1,100 auctions compared to 897 auctions the previous week.

Auction clearance rates in Sydney and Melbourne have remained strong as volumes have increased and are well above levels from a year ago.

12 months ago, Melbourne had 629 auctions and a clearance rate of 65.6% and Sydney had a clearance rate of 60.2% from 1,391 auctions.

Note that sales listings are based on a rolling 28 day count of unique properties that have been advertised for sale. 

Over the past four weeks, there were 49,431 newly advertised properties added to the market nationally which was -2.8% lower than a year ago while the 238,773 total properties advertised for sale were -2.6% lower than a year ago.

Total listings are currently at their highest level since the middle of May of this year.  

Across the combined capital cities, there were 31,264 newly advertised properties for sale over the past 28 days and 109,814 total listings, new listings were -4.1% lower than a year ago while total listings were up by 2.0%.

Brisbane (+8.2%), Perth (+11.8%) and Canberra (+0.3%) are the only capital cities in which newly advertised listings are higher than a year ago while new listings are substantially lower in Sydney (-16.5%).

The total number of advertised properties is lower over the year in Sydney (-9.6%), Melbourne (-0.8%), Hobart (-31.7%) and Canberra (-15.0%) and higher elsewhere, substantially higher in Perth (+18.5%).