Affordability pressures fail to stop first home buyers
Labor's initiatives to assist people to enter the housing market has helped boost the rate of home loans
NEW Federal Government home buying assistance schemes saw a major lift in the number of first home buyer loans at the end of last year.
Changes to the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme and the start of the Help To Buy Scheme proved significant factors in the surge.
The number of new first home buyer loans rose 6.8 per cent to 31,783 in the December quarter 2025, according to data released this week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
“There was strong growth across all borrower-types this quarter,” Dr Mish Tan, ABS head of finance statistics, said.
“The number of first home buyer loans rose 6.8 per cent, investor loan numbers rose 5.5 per cent and the number of owner-occupier non-first home buyer loans rose 3.6 per cent.
“This was the largest rise in the number of first home buyer loans since the December quarter 202, and their value increased by 15.5 per cent.”
Changes to policies supporting first home-buyers this quarter include the expansion of the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme and the introduction of the Australian Government Help To Buy Scheme.
The number of first home buyer owner-occupied loans rose by 2011 loans (6.8 per cent) to 31,783 in the December quarter and 9.1 per cent through the year.
There were rises in NSW (10.9 per cent), Queensland (6.4 per cent), Victoria (3.5 per cent), Western Australia (9.8 per cent), South Australia (4.8 per cent), Australian Capital Territory (7.1 per cent) and Northern Territory (3.2 per cent), while there was a fall in Tasmania (-1.7 per cent).
“The size of the average first home buyer loan rose by a record 8.5 per cent to $607,624 this quarter and was largely driven by first home buyers in NSW,” Tan said.
“The Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme has increased the eligibility criteria for first home buyers and we are seeing the early effects of this in our data.”
There were 60,445 new investment loans approved in the December quarter 2025, a 5.5 per cent (3176 loans) rise compared to the previous quarter, and 23.6 per cent higher than the December quarter 2024.
The total value of new investment loans was $43 billion in the December quarter, a rise of 7.9 per cent ($3.2 billion). The average loan size rose over the quarter by $31,008 to $716,711.
There was growth in the number of investment loans across all states: Victoria (8.8 per cent), NSW (4.1 per cent), Queensland (3.3 per cent), Western Australia (4.6 per cent), Tasmania (28.2 per cent) and South Australia (2.8 per cent).
There were falls in the Northern Territory (-9.3 per cent) and the ACT(-4.3 per cent).
