Home loan approvals have lifted for a second straight month, but growth fell slightly short of economists’ expectations.
The number of approvals rose 0.3 per cent in the month, against expectations of a 0.8 per cent lift. The result came after a 4.4 per cent rise in June.
There were 53,095 approvals in July, compared to 52,672 approvals in June, according to seasonally adjusted figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday.
The value of total housing finance rose 1.5 per cent in the month to $32.812 billion.
Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan said the data was largely in line with expectations, with the divergence from expectations “minor in the scheme of things -- monthly moves are typically much larger”.
“In effect both owner-occupier and investor lending was largely unchanged – the former following a fairly flat year and the latter following a sharp rise over the previous 12 months,” he said.
“The next few months are likely to get considerably more interesting with multiple factors at play including sharply weaker buyer sentiment amongst owner-occupiers through August-September and the added complication of tighter lending criteria and increased mortgage rates for investors following APRA’s ‘macroprudential’ measures.”
Loans by owner-occupiers for the construction of new homes dropped 0.9 per cent.
In trend terms, which strip out month-to-month volatility from the figures, the number of home loan approvals dropped marginally, slipping 0.2 per cent during the month.
Meanwhile, the total value of loans approved for property investors grew in July, lifting 0.5 per cent to $13.587bn.