Loan sizes cut
The average home loan size for housing finance in November was 4 per cent below the peaks of earlier in 2018 for both first homebuyers (down $13,500) and non-first homebuyers (down $16,500).
Home loan applicants may have seen their borrowing capacity cut much more sharply than this, by up to 20 per cent in many cases.
However, according to Reserve Bank of Australia research only around 1 in 10 borrowers use their maximum borrowing capacity or something close to it, hence the average loan has fallen by a far lesser amount to date.
In the Reserve Bank's own words "tighter lending standards do not constrain most borrowers but do affect some".
The impact to date has been more notable in Victoria (down 5 per cent from the peak) and Western Australia (down 5 per cent) than it has in New South Wales (down 3 per cent).
In Queensland there has been only limited impact on the average home loan size (down by 1 per cent), while in Tasmania the average loan size has not decreased at all.
These results are mainly driven by non-first homebuyers, which comprise the bulk of owner-occupier mortgages.
These results are mainly driven by non-first homebuyers, which comprise the bulk of owner-occupier mortgages.
In part due to data collection challenges related to loan-splitting - which may risk understatement* of the average loan size per dwelling - the ABS will discontinue its reporting on loan sizes henceforth.
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*the average loan size reported by AFG brokers, for example, has been consistently higher than the ABS derived figures.
