CoreLogic RP Data systems monitor more than 100,000 mortgage activity events every month across our 4 main finance industry platforms. Monitoring the activity events across this platform provides a unique and timely lead indicator to housing finance commitments. The index shows an 81% correlation with the ABS housing finance data series (88% using the seasonally adjusted series). Based on the strong correlation and significant number of events being monitored, the Mortgage Index provides the most timely and holistic measure of mortgage market activity available.
I’m not making a big deal of this but it is a break in seasonal patterns to see this index fall below its early year dip even if the year-on-year levels remain elevated. This would be consistent with a sudden reduction in mortgage availability that we’ve seen in recent weeks owing to macroprudential tightening. An index to watch.
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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.
