Lending indicators is the ABS’s quarterly estimate of new loan commitments that borrowers have accepted, for housing, personal and business loans. As at the June quarter 2026 release, the number of new loan commitments for dwellings fell 5.4% in the quarter and their value fell 5.2%, seasonally adjusted.
General informationThis page explains an official statistic. It is not financial or credit advice, and it says nothing about any one borrower or lender. The newest figures are on the ABS’s Lending indicators page.
What a loan commitment for a dwelling covers
The ABS describes the series as estimates of new “borrower-accepted” finance commitments.
The dwelling figures bring together loans for three purposes: building a new dwelling, buying a new one, and buying an existing one. Loans for residential land and for alterations and additions are published as separate series.
Refinanced loans have tables of their own, split between owner occupiers and investors and between external and internal refinancing.
Four lines in the headline
The release reports the number and the value of new commitments on four lines. For the June quarter 2026, seasonally adjusted:
| Borrowers | Number of new commitments | Value of new commitments |
|---|---|---|
| All dwellings | Fell 5.4% | Fell 5.2% |
| Owner occupiers | Fell 3.3% | Fell 1.9% |
| Investors | Fell 8.6% | Fell 10.2% |
| First home buyers (owner occupiers) | Fell 2.9% | Rose 0.2% |
Investors fell furthest on both counts. The first home buyer line is for owner occupier first home buyers, and in the release’s own table they sit inside the owner occupier group, beside non-first home buyers. First home buyers who buy as investors are counted in a table of their own further down the release.
The quarter, and the year
The same table also compares each line with the June quarter 2025, and the year tells a different story from the quarter.
| Borrowers | Number, June quarter 2026 | Number, change on a year | Value, June quarter 2026 | Value, change on a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All dwellings | 134,225 | Rose 0.1% | $97.6b | Rose 6.8% |
| Owner occupiers | 81,626 | Fell 1.6% | $60.5b | Rose 6.0% |
| First home buyers (owner occupiers) | 29,319 | No change (0.0%) | $18.4b | Rose 10.0% |
| Investors | 52,599 | Rose 2.8% | $37.1b | Rose 8.1% |
So against the March quarter, every figure fell except the value of first home buyers’ commitments, and yet against the June quarter 2025 the value of new commitments was higher on every line. The two comparisons answer different questions: how this quarter moved from the last one, and how it stands against the same quarter a year before. A headline that quotes one should say which.
When number and value move apart
The number of loans and their value are separate series, and the distance between them carries information of its own. If the value of a group’s loans falls by less than their number, the average loan in that group was larger than the quarter before.
First home buyers: 1.002 (value, up 0.2%) ÷ 0.971 (number, down 2.9%) ≈ 1.032
With the number down 2.9% and the value up 0.2%, the average size of a first home buyer’s new commitment rose by about 3.2% in the quarter. The same sum gives owner occupiers about 1.4% higher (number down 3.3%, value down 1.9%) and investors about 1.8% lower (number down 8.6%, value down 10.2%).
These averages are our arithmetic on the seasonally adjusted changes, not ABS figures. The ABS publishes its own average loan sizes for owner occupiers and investors, by state, in original terms.
The quality note to read first
The release carries a warning that applies to its housing figures. In the ABS’s words, “Data quality concerns remain in how lenders are reporting the value of internal refinancing of housing finance loans.” It is working with APRA, the Reserve Bank and lenders to make reporting consistent across lenders, and it expects revisions to the housing finance data when that is resolved.
Two more notes shape any comparison over time. Some series only began in the September quarter 2019, when the Economic and Financial Statistics collection was introduced. And the ABS reviews its seasonally adjusted lending series regularly. The release previously went by catalogue number 5601.0, the number older documents cite.
More housing in the same release
Beyond the headline, the release’s downloadable tables carry housing finance in more detail:
- owner occupier and investor commitments for each state and territory, with first home buyers by state;
- housing finance by lender type;
- commitments to non-residents;
- business finance by purpose, including construction and the purchase of property.
The business lines are easy to miss and belong in any reading of property lending. In the June quarter 2026, seasonally adjusted, new business commitments for the purchase of property were worth $27.2 billion, 4.4% more than in the March quarter, and for construction $12.5 billion, 2.9% more.
The same loans, read elsewhere
Other official releases refer to these figures. In its statement of 29 September 2026, the Reserve Bank’s Monetary Policy Board said that “new housing loans have declined noticeably”. That is the Board’s reading on that date; the cash rate guide explains how its statements are made and published.
Going further back, the final issue of the ABS Residential Property Price Indexes, a series that ended with its December quarter 2021 release, reported that new lending commitments for housing, excluding refinancing, had risen to a record high value in that quarter. That figure belongs to December 2021, and the guide to the ended series reads it as history.
The next release, for the September quarter 2026, is listed for 11 November 2026.