First home deposit scheme oversubscribed again

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CBA says that it has already reached capacity for first home loan deposit scheme (FHLDS) applications:

The Commonwealth Bank has confirmed it is no longer taking applications for the first home loan deposit scheme, which is allowing people to acquire a mortgage with as little as a 5 per cent deposit, saying it has run out of allocated spots.

“We’re proudly supporting the first home loan deposit scheme,” a CBA spokesman said.

“However, due to the popularity and number of places available under the scheme, we are not currently accepting new requests to join our waitlist”…

CBA and National Australia Bank are the only major banks approved for the scheme and are offering half of the NHFIC-backed loans.

Of course, Tuesday’s federal budget set an additional 10,000 places under the FHLDS available between the 6th of October and the 30th of June 2021, which adds to the 20,000 places made available since the scheme started in January 2020.

The price thresholds have also been increased for newly built homes, as illustrated below via CoreLogic:

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Given the popularity of the FHLDS, its is likely to be oversubscribed again and run out of places well before the June 2021 deadline.

Thus, we are likely to see first home buyer (FHB) subsidies become a permanent feature of the Coalition’s fake housing affordability policy.

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Just as well, because the Coalition needs to generate buyers for property investors to hand-off losing assets:

Gotta summon the FHB patsies.

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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.