"There was more good news for the housing market today with the release of figures showing that the value of owner occupier home loans has reached its highest since July of last year," Shane Garrett, Chief Economist of Master Builders Australia said.
"The latest figures indicate that the seasonally-adjusted value of lending to owner occupiers reached $14.24 billion during September, an expansion of 3.2% compared with the previous month and up by 5.6% compared with a year ago. The value of new home lending was up by 0.8% during the month," he said.
"The news around the housing market has been largely positive over the past six months and the new figures out today add to the unfolding good news story," Shane Garrett said.
"Confidence has been in short supply across the economy over recent times with the subdued state of domestic demand reflecting this," he said.
"The state of the housing market has a huge impact on people's willingness to spend and invest. The continued improvement in the housing market will assist in this respect," Shane Garrett said.
"We still need more from all levels of government so that demand in the economy can be bolstered," he said.
"Earlier today, the Reserve Bank trimmed its short-term growth forecasts for the Australian economy," Shane Garrett said.
"Part of the problem is that new infrastructure projects are not hitting the ground quickly enough. This is causing economic recovery to be delayed unnecessarily," Shane Garrett said.
During September, Tasmania saw the largest increase in the number of owner occupier home loans (+10.3%), followed by Western Australia (+5.6%) and the Northern Territory (+3.6%). There were also increases in Queensland (+3.5%), New South Wales (+1.8%), Victoria (+1.8%) and South Australia (+1.0%). The ACT was the only market to see the number of owner occupier loans drop during September (-1.8%).
