Australian First home buyers the new kings of the housing market
As so often is the case, it appears the market has run ahead of government housing policy. According to the NAB June quarter residential property survey, first home buyers were the biggest players in new property sales and second in established housing.
Someone forgot to tell FHBs to wait until July 1 for various government incentives. In particular, the NSW stamp duty deal was widely tipped to sideline FHBs in June and cause a rush this month. If there is a further surge from the NAB’s June quarter figures, FHBs will rule.
The NAB series is very different to the usually-quoted Australian Bureau of Statistics FHB figures which rely on housing loan commitments – thus missing those using the Bank of Mum and Dad – and don’t count FHB investors. The NAB economics team surveys some 260 property professionals to build profiles of both sales activity and the market outlook. Of most interest in the headline-prone FHB segment, it records both those buying to occupy and FHB investors.
NAB found FHB owner occupiers accounted for 21.2 per cent of new property sales in the quarter and FHB investors bought 14.4 per cent – a total market share of 35.7 per cent, the biggest such proportion since the survey started tracking the FHB breakdown in 2014. FHBs shaded non-FHB owner occupiers’ 33.2 per cent and were nearly double domestic investors’ 18.2 per cent. Foreign buyers took 11.6 per cent.
In established housing sales, FHB owner occupiers scored 18 per cent and FHB investors 10.1 per cent for a total of 28.1 – well behind non-FHB owner occupiers’ 42.4 per cent but ahead of Australian investors’ 22.6. Foreign buyers’ share of established housing continued a three-year falling trend with 5.6 per cent.
The jump in FHB activity has been at the expense or in the absence of domestic investors, especially in new properties where they dropped from 25.3 per cent of sales in the March quarter to 18.6 per cent.
“Clearly, tougher measures on banks announced by regulators to rein in investor lending are being felt in this segment of the market,” the NAB economists observed, with just a hint of understatement.
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