Login
ISCOVER
Staff Reporter
Australia's mortgage market is gearing up for a busier year, new analysis by RateCity has revealed.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
Lower property prices, two successive interest rate cuts, and aggressive discounting by lenders eager to kick start the borrowing market, have all combined to point to growth in 2012.
"This year, the mortgage market looks set to recover from the past two years of slower growth," RateCity's chief executive Damian Smith said.
"While we're yet to see the strong numbers of home buyers from five years ago, lenders are likely to see business improving this year as borrowers react to lower prices and interest rates."
Home buyers started to pick up towards the end of 2011, with almost 51,000 home loans financed in November, according to the latest (original) figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released last week (January 16, 2012).
"This is the biggest number of home loans financed recorded by the ABS for two years," said Mr Smith. "The dollar value of these home loans was almost $15 billion in November alone."
RateCity's own data mirrors these trends. Prospective home buyers are flocking to RateCity to compare the best home loan deals, with an increase in activity over the past six months. Applications for home loans through RateCity jumped by 41 per cent in December 2011 compared to July 2011.
RateCity also recorded a 23 per cent increase in home loan applications for the first three weeks of January 2012 compared to January 2011.
