First Home Buyers Dwindling

Record low first home buyer levels even worse than first thought

The number of first home buyers in Australia is actually much lower than previously reported, despite already being close to record lows, after the Australian Bureau of Statistics revised key figures over a four year period.

Key Points

• The number of home buyers, already at record lows, drops even lower
• Revisions are from improved data provided by lenders
• Investors rather than first home buyers proactive in Sydney, Melbourne

The ABS said it had worked with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and lenders to ensure all loans to first home buyers were reported, regardless of whether or not they received a first home owner grant.

"In the process of working with lenders, corrected historical data has been reported by some lenders and this improved data has been used to re-estimate the first home buyer statistics back to October 2012," the ABS said.

The number of first home buyers, already around record lows, saw numbers drop even lower. In the original ABS numbers, 14.1 per cent were home buyers in July 2016, but that has been revised lower to 13.2 per cent.

The revisions cover a period of between October 2012 to July 2016, and affect estimates for the number of first home buyers and average loan size for first home buyers.

"I think it reinforces what a lot of people think and that first home buyers are really struggling in the market at the moment," said Cameron Kusher, head of research at CoreLogic.

"It doesn't surprise me that we've got a very low number of first home buyers given where prices are, how high youth unemployment is, how low wages growth is, and the fact that the investor segment, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, has been so proactive over the last few years."

Mr Kusher said first home buyers are more active in states including Western Australia and South Australia, but national trends have been driven by Sydney and Melbourne.

"Jobs market is just not very strong in most areas outside of Sydney and Melbourne so people are going to be less inclined to go and take that risk, particularly move to Brisbane or move to Adelaide or Perth if they don't feel that they can actually go into those markets, move there and find job opportunities," Mr Kusher said.

According to UBS, Sydney has the fourth riskiest housing market in the world after surging in value over the last three years.

Skyrocketing house prices means young people are increasingly priced out of the market, while statistics show couples over the age of 65 who had invested in the property market are now reaping the rewards, and are considered the richest Australians.

"It has a big impact because most people build the majority of their wealth through residential property," Mr Kusher said.

"Longer term as well, if people get to retirement and don't have significant assets, then that means that they cost the government more in social security and pensions.

"The real challenge is if people aren't in a position to buy property."

 

Percentages without numbers makes for a good headline. There's never been more than 20,000 FHO's reported in a year so 1% of the max 20,000 is 200 less FHO's right after a huge boon... Hardly a big deal or surprising in in my book.

Also don't think 4 years is a particularly useful timeframe to measure such a statistic. Especially when comparing to the last 10 where it looks fairly steady


And over last 20 years it seems to average about 10,002 pa;

You don't say?!!

 

Why are these mutually exclusive?

 

B

bahaha, great graph. Apart from the blip in the graph when the incentives were increased which would have had a bringforward effect, it looks pretty steady to me. Nothing like sensationalist journalism.

 

Quoted for truth.

 

you would think that though that FHO would increase with population growth?

 

Investor housing demand rises as owner occupier fades

I think this is because of the most investor realized that they now have access to equity and also with the possibility of further interest rate cut, hence they now jump into the market before it is too late or harder to get the loan from the bank.

Seems to me the property bubble is getting bigger which can bring down the whole economy in Australia around 2017-2019.

The bubble will have to pop eventually.