RBA: $1.4bn in home loan switching over September

In its latest Financial Aggregates data for the month of September, the Reserve Bank of Australia found that total mortgage lending increased by 6.6 per cent over the year, up slightly from 6.4 per cent on the previous year.

Over the month of September, owner-occupied lending grew by 0.5 per cent to $1.11 trillion while investment lending rose by 0.3 per cent to $583 billion.

Property investor loans accounted for 34.3 per cent of all mortgages, according to the Reserve Bank’s figures.

“Following the introduction of an interest rate differential between housing loans to investors and owner-occupiers in mid-2015, a number of borrowers have changed the purpose of their existing loan,” the RBA said.

“The net value of switching of loan purpose from investor to owner-occupier is estimated to have been $59 billion over the period of July 2015 to September 2017, of which $1.4 billion occurred in September 2017.

“These changes are reflected in the level of owner-occupier and investor credit outstanding. However, growth rates for these series have been adjusted to remove the effect of loan purpose changes.”

[Related: Significant decline in interest-only loans]