Qld nabs top spot for home loan financing: CBA

The latest State of the States data released by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has revealed that the value of home loans in Queensland was the strongest as of February 2024.

The measure the major bank used was the trend value of owner-occupier housing finance commitments (or home loans) excluding refinancing. This was compared with the decade average for each respective state and territory.

According to the data, Queensland maintained its top spot among the states and territories, with the value of home loans up 21.1 per cent on the long-term average.

In all states and territories (excluding the Northern Territory), housing finance commitments remained above decade averages, however, were still below last year’s levels in two states and territories when compared to the last three surveys.

Following Queensland, Western Australia’s home loan values were up 17.5 per cent on the decade average, followed by South Australia (14.2 per cent) and the ACT (12 per cent).

Housing finance commitments in the NT were the weakest among the states and territories, down 15 per cent on the decade average, while commitments in Victoria were up 8.9 per cent, followed by NSW (8.3 per cent) and Tasmania (0.7 per cent).

Annually, Western Australian home loan values were the strongest, up 12.1 per cent, and Queensland at 10.1 per cent.

This was followed by Victoria at 8.8 per cent, NSW (7.4 per cent), South Australia (4.7 per cent), and the ACT (1.6 per cent).

The NT and Tasmania recorded a decline on the decade average in annual terms, at 14.9 per cent and 7.7 per cent, respectively.

This came as the latest Lending Indicators data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed a recovery in the value of new loan commitments during February after back-to-back declines in December 2023 and January.

The data showed the value of new loan commitments for total housing increased by 1.5 per cent, up to $26.4 billion, following a drop of 0.8 per cent in January. This left new loan commitment values 13.3 per cent higher when compared to the same period last year.

Owner-occupier housing values rose 1.6 per cent to $16.9 billion and were 9.1 per cent higher compared to a year ago. Meanwhile, the value of new loan commitments for investor housing rose 1.2 per cent to $9.5 billion, with annual growth of 21.5 per cent.

ABS head of finance statistics Mish Tan said the annual growth in the value of new investor loans made up “over half of the growth in total new loan commitments over the past year”.

[RELATED: New loan commitments rebound: ABS]