Grim detail in Aussie mortgage snapshot
Written by admin on September 18, 2024
The number of investor mortgages in Australia is growing at five times the rate of loans being given owner-occupiers – with one housing critic claiming it’s easier for “hoarders” to own homes they will never live in.
Money.com’s latest monthly mortgages report shows amid the grinding housing crisis, construction loans to investors have actually grown the most, just outpacing internal refinancing loans, and then loans for existing properties.
Investor loan numbers as a whole have grown 15 per cent in the past year.
Owner-occupier loans have grown to 3 per cent, climbing out of negative territory in July.
Those loans are only growing in the aggregate because people are refinancing their mortgages, while loans for construction (excluding renovations), new houses or land are all either not growing or going backwards.
There is evidence people are finding some breathing space to buy a first home though.
The number of first home buyers getting a mortgage is growing three times quicker than the overall owner-occupier market.
During the past year, new entrants have accounted for 116,581 of the 371,136 new owner occupied loans; about 30 per cent.
Investors are snapping up homes in Western Australia at the most vigorous rate, while WA has the third-lowest loan size.
“The investor loan market continues to be the primary growth area for new loans, with competition intensifying further in July 2024 as more lenders target investors,” the Money.com analysis says.
Despite high interest rates and inflation, the number of home loans issued is up 7 per cent in annual terms.
One in three first homebuyer loans come from Victoria, growing at the second-fastest rate behind Queensland.
In Australia about two-thirds of homes are owner-occupied, and about 31 per cent of homes are rented.
Victorian Senate candidate Jordan van den Lamb said the latest mortgage data showed investors were hoarding properties.
“The data shows we’ve created a system that makes it easier for hoarders (investors) to own homes they will never live in, than it is to buy a home in which you actually wish to live.”
Mr van den Lamb has garnered a large online following for exposing decrepit homes on his website S**tRentals.org.
He will contest the next federal election for the Victorian Socialist Party.
“We need to make it harder for investors to purchase their second, third, fourth and fiftieth homes while there are First Nations folks that cannot manage to find a place to live in their own country,” he said.
“We know that we have enough homes in this country to house everybody, but the media keeps shouting that if investors keep selling their investments, nobody will have anywhere to live … homes in fact do not disappear once they are sold.”
