First home buyers accounted for one-third of all Queensland homes purchased in the last quarter, according to the Real Estate Institute of Australia Housing Affordability Report released this month.
Across Australia, Queenslanders accounted for nearly one in five of all first time buyers.
The average loan size to Queensland’s first home buyers increased to $376,207, the REIA reports. This is an increase of 0.6% during the quarter and an increase of 10.6% compared to the June quarter 2019.
This compares to the state’s overall average loan size of $414,426 which has increased 7.6% compared to the June quarter 2019.
But the Sunshine State still basks in affordability by comparison to other major capital cities — our average loan size is 16.0% lower than the national average.
The good news for affordability nationally is that the glacial pace of household income growth has been offset by a fall in loan repayments.
“Even though the family income only increased 0.1 percentage point during the period, the average loan repayment decreased 0.6 percentage points through a drop in the average variable standard interest rate,” said REIA president Adrian Kelly.
Check out the proportion of first timers in each state last quarter:
- Victoria 33.8%
- New South Wales 25.2%
- Queensland 18.1%
- Western Australia 11.8%
- South Australia 5.8%
- Australian Capital Territory 2.5%
- Tasmania 1.9%
- Northern Territory 0.8%
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