Mortgage market growth at historical lows
The Australian mortgage market has recorded historically low growth in the year to September 2012, increasing by only 4.2 per cent, according to CoreData's Australian Mortgage Report.
The report found the low growth figures were mostly due to the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) and National Bank of Australia (NAB) reclassifying residential lending as business debt.
The impact of these errors - which were fixed in the September 12 quarter - dragged mortgage system quarter growth down from 4-7 per cent growth in 2011.
"Even at these levels it remains well below the near 12 per cent annual system growth experienced five years ago," CoreData stated.
"Removing the errors - net new lending has generally been trending lower for the past six years, with the uptick in 2010 driven by first home buyers."
Interest rate is the biggest decision driver when it comes to taking out a mortgage, followed by fees, charges and product flexibility.
In terms of market share, CBA is the largest player on the residential lending market, holding almost a quarter of the whole market.
Coming in second is Westpac with 23.8 per cent market share, followed by NAB (14.9 per cent) and ANZ (13.6 per cent).
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