Australian housing finance rebounds sequentially in February

Australian housing finance rebounded in February, with all categories recording gains and all coming in above market expectations. The value of housing finance rose 2.7 percent sequentially in February, the first gain since July.

Given the unrelenting softness of the data since then, a bounce was perhaps inevitable at some point, noted ANZ in a research report. Still, the gain was widespread and larger than the market was expecting. The year-on-year decline decelerated slightly from a fall of 20.3 percent in January to a fall of 18.6 percent in February.

The value of finance for owner-occupiers rose 3.4 percent sequentially, the first rise since October and the largest rise since August 2015. Finance for first home buyers rose 3.6 percent sequentially in value terms, the largest gain since November 2017.

“For investors the 0.9 percent m/m gain was the first since July 2018. It was not enough to prevent the annual decline accelerating somewhat, however”, stated ANZ.

At 13:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Australia was highly bullish at 118.621 while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at -46.6383 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex