Investors roar back into housing markets as NSW charges ahead

Investors continue to rush back into housing markets with activity levels now clearly rising above those recorded last year at the same time.

Latest ABS data reports that the national value of loans approved to investors over September surged over the month by 5.8 percent to $12.7bn and was 9.5 percent higher than that reported over September last year.

Despite the strong rise, the total value of residential investor finance recorded over the first 9 months of this year remains 13.2 percent lower than recorded over the same period last year.

NSW remains clearly the engine room for residential investor finance with an increase of 8.9 percent over September to $6.2bn which is 13.7 percent higher than the total approved over September 2015.

NSW now accounts for 48.7 percent of all residential investor lending nationally which is the highest national market share recorded since the boom period of 2003.

Locally, investor lending in NSW accounted for 57.6 percent of all lending for housing purchases over September reported in that state – the highest market share since July last year.

Victoria and Queensland also reported strong increases in investor lending over September – up by 2.8 percent and 7.8 percent respectively. The Victorian total of $3.3bn was 17.4 percent higher than that recorded over September the year before with a local market residential finance share of 47.6 percent – the highest monthly result since July 2015.

Rising house prices continues to attract residential investors generally with the strong Sydney and Melbourne markets remaining key targets.   Increased investor activity will continue to put upward pressure on house prices with tax-enhanced residential investment set to remain a favoured option in a low growth, low yield low interest rate economy.

Dr Andrew Wilson is Domain Group Chief Economist Twitter@DocAndrewWilson join on LinkedIn