Home buyer lending has dropped off again as higher interest rates continue to suppress demand for housing.
The 2.9 per cent monthly fall in new home commitments followed a 5.3 per cent uptick in housing-related borrowing in March.
The value of owner-occupier lending fell 3.8 per cent, to $15.4 billion, whereas investor borrowing sunk a more modest 0.9 per cent, to $7.9 billion.
Total housing lending is still 25.8 per cent lower than a year ago.
Oxford Economics Australia senior economist Maree Kilroy said the result had not undone the gains of the month before, with strong demand for housing and limited supply keeping a floor under home prices.
"New listings have fallen to a decade low and price growth has returned in markets where households have a greater incidence of purchasing with cash such as the upper quartile of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth," Ms Kilroy said.
She said the number of loans for constructing dwellings fell to a historical low of 2546 in yet another sign of a struggling home building sector.
Housing Industry Association senior economist Tom Devitt said the last time there were so few loans for buying or building a new home was during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.
“There are very long lags in this cycle and the full impact of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s rate increases are still to fully hit the housing market, let alone the broader economy," he said.
Mr Devitt said the fall in new lending for home building pointed to a slowdown in home building that would clash with the growing population post-pandemic.
The refinancing boom also appears to have run out of steam, falling 9.2 per cent to $19.3 billion from March.
