Sydney’s speculator frenzy is clearly fizzling-out, with today’s Lending Finance data for September, released by the ABS, revealing that the share of loans going to New South Wales investors registered their third consecutive monthly decline; although the annual value of investor mortgages still managed to rise to another all time high.
As shown below, the annual value of investor loans in New South Wales (read Sydney) continued to grow, albeit at a slowing pace, with Victoria (read Melbourne) – the second hottest market – flattening-out:
According to the ABS, investor finance commitments in New South Wales in September were 7.8% higher than September 2014. New South Wales investor loans were also up by 25.9% in rolling annual terms in the year to September 2015, well above the national average increase of 18.4%.
As at September 2015, investors accounted for a still-staggering 59.1% of total housing finance commitments (excluding refinancings) in New South Wales (Sydney), although this was down from the record 60.3% share posted in June 2015. Victoria’s (read Melbourne’s) share of investor mortgages also fell to 49.4% in September, down from July’s 50.5% peak:
Putting the two charts together for New South Wales (Sydney) still yields the following monstrosity:
Whereas Victoria (Melbourne) is not much better:
Clearly, the massive investor bubble driving Sydney’s and Melbourne’s housing markets is now cooked, with APRA’s and the banks’ investor loan caps starting to bite.
