Housing finance accelerated into Q4, supporting the \u201cstill-warm\u201d domestic demand narrative, but the RBA\u2019s next hike is still more likely May than March. <\/p>\n
Summary:<\/p>\n
Q4 housing finance strengthened across owner-occupiers, investors and first-home buyers<\/p>\n
Value growth outpaced volumes, pointing to larger average loan sizes<\/p>\n
Investor value growth cooled sharply from Q3\u2019s surge<\/p>\n
RBA hiked to 3.85% in February, citing sticky inflation and capacity pressures<\/p>\n
Market consensus leans May for the next move; March remains a lower-probability risk<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s latest housing finance figures point to a clear pickup in credit demand into the end of 2025, but the signal for near-term Reserve Bank of Australia policy is likely to be modest.<\/p>\n
The Australian Bureau of Statistics said the number of new dwelling loan commitments rose 5.1% q\/q in Q4 2025, while the value lifted 9.5%. Owner-occupier commitments increased 4.8% on the quarter and the value jumped 10.6%, while investor commitments rose 5.5% and the value grew 7.9%, a sharp step-down from the prior quarter\u2019s very strong run. First-home-buyer activity also improved, with commitments up 6.8% and the value up 15.5%. <\/p>\n
The headline is that housing credit momentum stayed firm despite higher rates and still-elevated cost-of-living pressure, reinforcing the view that interest-sensitive parts of the economy remain resilient. For the RBA, however, housing finance is only one piece of the puzzle alongside inflation, wages, consumption and labour-market tightness.<\/p>\n
The central bank raised the cash rate to 3.85% on 3 February and has been explicit that inflation is expected to sit above the target band \u201cfor a while longer,\u201d with recent strength in domestic activity adding to capacity pressures. <\/p>\n
Markets have been leaning to a follow-up hike in May, a line of questioning even surfaced in the post-meeting press conference, while the next decision is not until 17 March. A case can be made for a March move if inflation or activity surprises hotter again, but it remains a lower-probability outcome given the RBA\u2019s preference to assess additional data and the already-tight setting of policy.<\/p>\n
In short: the housing numbers are consistent with an economy that is still running warm, but on their own are unlikely to shift the rate path decisively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Housing finance accelerated into Q4, supporting the \u201cstill-warm\u201d domestic demand narrative, but the RBA\u2019s next hike is still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[156345,138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-278385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-australia-housing-credit-demand","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}