3000 were taken by first-home buyers each month. Despite soaring first home prices over the past year, only a third of first-home buyers took a loan of more than 80 per cent of the price of the house they were buying, half the proportion reported in the two previous quarters.
The firm’s head of banking and finance, John Kensington, is of the view that these figures suggest that more first-home buyers were making it on their own steam, most likely with the support of parents and grandparents, although several other factors may also have contributed. “I think it is probably parents or other people chipping in, but I think it is also banks being careful, and perhaps not being quite so willing to do quite the same quantity of high loan-to-value ratio loans,” he said.
Kensington also pointed out that the fear of losing out may also have encouraged first-home buyers to do all they can to secure a home of their own, while their loved ones may have dug deep to support these efforts. “There’s probably a little bit of FOMO, with parents saying, ‘You have to get into the market’,” he added.
