Alongside the slide in house prices ahs been the slide in financing
Chicken and egg, tail wagging the dog …. all sorts of analogies and discussions of what is driving what abound.
Anyway, for today:
Home loans
- expected -2.0% m/m, prior -0.9
Investment lending
- prior -4.5% m/m
Owner occupied lending
- -1.4% m/m
Westpac on what to expect:
- Housing finance approvals softened in November with weakness concentrated in investor loans and the value, as opposed to the number of owner occupier loans
- The headline number of owner occupier loans held up a little better than expected, recording a 0.9% decline
- However, the total value of housing finance approvals including investors but excluding owner occupier refi, was down -2.9%mth and -16%yr.
The December update is expected to show a further weakening with industry data covering the major banks pointing to a sharp decline in the final month of the year. Owner occupier approvals are expected to show a 3% drop, adding to the bleak picture around housing in late 2018
