Revive home buyer grants
Australian Finance Group figures released yesterday show sales of new mortgages in SA fell 13.8 per cent in July compared to June, and are down 19.9 per cent on July 2009.
SA recorded the largest monthly fall of the mainland states, while Queensland and WA performed worse over the year, posting 30.7 and 27.6 per cent declines in mortgage sales.
Nationally, sales of mortgages fell 9.1 per cent for the month and 15.1 per cent for the year.
Real Estate Institute of SA president Michael Brock said the significant yearly fall was reflective of the drop in demand from first-time buyers, after the first-homebuyers boost finished at the end of 2009.
“Without the boost those applications have now dropped away quite significantly,” Mr Brock said.
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“We at the institute would hope that the Federal Government and Opposition, in the lead-up to the election, would be reconsidering the first-homebuyers boost.”
The AFG figures show that first-time buyer mortgage applications have more than halved in SA over the past year.
Mr Brock said further stimulus would have flow-on effects to other industries, such as construction.
“One of the problems that we see is that once the schools projects (Building Education Revolution) finish, there will be a wane in the marketplace,” he said.
Toop & Toop managing director Anthony Toop said the upcoming federal election, a volatile stock market and concern over interest rates combined to create uncertainty in the market during July.
“Whenever there is uncertainty, there is always a lack of confidence,” he said.
Mr Toop said the drop in volumes had not affected prices, and predicted that the SA property market would bounce back quickly, with or without stimulus measures.
“Adelaide’s market is very stable, unlike some of what we are seeing in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane,” he said.
“We believe that the market is going to be very strong heading into spring.”