Despite new loan commitments falling across much of the nation, the number of Tasmanians signing up for their first home went up in September.
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The latest batch of loan indicators from Australian Bureau of Statistics showed loans to owner-occupier first home buyers across the nation fell for an eighth consecutive quarter, down 5.6 per cent in September.
ABS head of finance and wealth Katherine Keenan noted much of the drop was driven by falls in the country's most populous and COVID-impacted states, Victoria and New South Wales.
"The largest fall in the number of first home buyer loan commitments was in Victoria which fell 17 per cent and New South Wales which fell 3.1 per cent," she said.
This contributed to an overall fall in new loan commitments of 1.4 per cent, but unlike in much of the country, Tasmania's latest loan figures for first-home buyers managed to shrug off a four month decline.
New loan commitments to first-home buyers in the state increased to 234, rising up from the 12-month low of 197 last month, marking the first up-tick since May.
Likewise, new loans to investment housing continued to surge throughout the state and to a record high $126 million. First-time buyers made up just under one third of all new loan commitments in September.
That said, when seasonally adjusted, the rise in the number of loans didn't alleviate the fall in total value of new loan commitments, which spiked last year and has been dropping since January.
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The average loan size for Tasmanian owner-occupiers stayed steady around 400,000, lower than the national average of around $574,000 but a staggering $60,000 more than the state's average in September 2020, an 18.8 per cent leap.
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