Australian borrowers maintained their strong preference for fixed rate loans with 32 per cent of all approvals in this category up on the 12-month average of 30 per cent, the latest Mortgage Choice franchise national housing loan approval data for January 2007 revealed.
Financial services franchise National Corporate Affairs Manager, Warren O’Rourke said, “There is no doubt that the three rate rises in 2006 have unsettled borrowers, and in particular first home buyers. Our data over the past three months has shown fixed rates to be the most popular mortgage route. Having certainty around repayments at a time when there has been strong consumer sentiment about further rate rises during 2007 made sense to a lot of people.
“Interestingly, the Mortgage Choice Consumer Sentiment Survey results released early December revealed that 86.3 per cent of respondents nationally believed interest rates would rise in the first quarter of 2007. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case in February when the Reserve Bank of Australia announced no change to official interest rates.”
Standard variable home loans represented 30 per cent of all loans approvals nationally, which is below the 12-month and six-month averages of 32 per cent.
There was an increase in demand for basic variable home loans during January with 24 per cent of approvals for this category. This was more than two percentage points below the 12-month average.
26-Feb-2007