Investor mortgages rip higher

No real surprise here from ABS housing finance for March given the leading indicators showed it coming but still:

MARCH KEY FIGURES

	Trend estimates		Seasonally adjusted estimates
	Mar 2015	Feb 2015 to Mar 2015	Mar 2015	Feb 2015 to Mar 2015
Value of dwelling commitments(a)(b)

	$m	% change	$m	% change
Total dwellings	31 264	0.8	31 622	3.5
Owner occupied housing	18 623	0.8	18 710	1.6
Investment housing – fixed loans(c)	12 641	0.8	12 913	6.4
Number of dwelling commitments(a)(b)

	no.	% change	no.	% change
Owner occupied housing	54 190	0.4	54 686	1.6
Construction of dwellings	5 836	-1.4	5 804	-1.8
Purchase of new dwellings	2 680	-0.1	2 777	2.9
Purchase of established dwellings	45 674	0.7	46 105	2.0

(a) Includes refinancing (see Glossary).
(b) Excludes alterations and additions.
(c) Excludes revolving credit.

Investors up 6.4% on the month! Good ‘ol APRA keeping an eye on things.

Leith will be back with the full report.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.