Friday, 22 November 2019

Mortgage rebound is real

Lodgements bounce back

There's some really weird housing market analysis going on right now. 

When in doubt, stick to the tried and tested leading indicators and sources of information. 

Here's Australia's largest mortgage aggregator Australian Finance Group, a listed group (ASX: AFG) discussing its latest lodgement figures at this morning's AGM:


Source: ASX

Mortgages lodgements rebounded in Q1 of the new financial year, immediately following the election.

And through October lodgements are now running +21 per cent faster year-on-year, driven by a surge in New South Wales.

Welcome to the recovery.

Majors hurting

It's been an atrocious week for Westpac shareholders, with the stock price plunging from $30 to $24.75 as a huge raft of further breaches have been exposed. 

More broadly, the non-majors have increased their markets share to a record high of 46 per cent according to AFG's figures: 


Source: AFG

It's also been a tough year for the broking sector, with a Royal Commission which threatened to bring the industry to its knees, but things are now recovering well. 

6 in 10 mortgages are now lodged through a broker, and the AFG share price has recovered from $1 to $2.60.