Mortgage lending showing signs of the sniffles

Mortgage lending showing signs of the sniffles
Brent Melville
On the face of it, the Reserve Bank’s latest mortgage lending numbers of $6.2 billion for March can be taken as a measure of decent health, up about $410 million year-on-year. The lending numbers are relatively subdued however, in the context of the overheated property market leading into March. Corelogic property economist Kelvin Davidson said, even with the shortened trading month, the data may signal a wider covid-19 driven slowdown in the mortgage market, “reflecting caution both by lenders and borrowers.”  And the removal of the c...

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