NEWS
The number of approvals for housing finance in Australia rose 3.5 per cent in January from December to 55,628 contracts.
Demand for Australian housing finance rose as stimulus in the form of generous government handouts for new home buyers and sharply lower interest rates kept the sector's pulse strong.
Economists surveyed ahead of today’s announcement by the Australian Bureau of Statistics had on average expected a rise of 4 per cent in the number of loans for owner-occupied residences, in seasonally adjusted terms.
The total value of housing finance commitments rose 0.7 per cent to $18.88 billion; housing finance commitments feed directly into the Reserve Bank of Australia's credit aggregates data.
Economists said the demand for housing finance is a further sign that Australian property prices are unlikely to follow in the footsteps of international property, where massive declines in value have been commonplace.
Source: theaustralian.news.com.au
Published: 11 March 2009
