Oz govt offer housing grant

A rush from first-time buyers to take advantage of the Government's one-off housing grant before it ends on 30th June has boosted the number of applications for mortgage loans to buy property in Australia...

Data from the Australian Finance Group (AFG) shows that the volume of mortgages arranged by the company rose by 36.8 per cent year-on-year in February to 7,673 loans, valued at £1.28 billion.

Of those, 26.1 per cent were taken out by first-home buyers, up from 25.8 per cent in January.

AFG General Manager of Sales and Operations Mark Hewitt is now calling on the Government to extend its grant top-up scheme to prevent a fall in mortgage lending levels during the second half of this year.

"The dramatic increase we've seen in first-home buyers over the past four months is a double-edged sword," Hewitt said.

"It's positive in that it underpins the future recovery of mid-level property markets by getting significant numbers of people onto the property ladder.

"But we're concerned that if the Government doesn't announce an extension to the grants fairly soon, we'll continue to pull demand forward, and will be left staring over a cliff come the end of June."

In October, the Federal Government doubled the first-home owners grant to £6,500 for ready-built homes, and tripled it to £9,700 for newly built properties.

AFG's figures showed that New South Wales had the highest proportion of first-home buyers, at 34.5 per cent in February, followed by Victoria, at 26.8 per cent.

Standard variable rates were the most popular, making up 48.8 per cent of all homeloans.

Source: www.homesoverseas.co.uk/news