The easing of Covid-19 restrictions set off $1 billion in new mortgages across the country in June, after two months of decline, as demand from owner-occupiers picked up and investor loans grew for the first time in 6 months.

The value of loans approved jumped by 6.2%, taking total new lending commitments, so that’s excluding refinancing, to $17.4 billion, up from $16.4 billion.

These figures show that as soon as we saw the easing of restrictions after the first wave, overall demand for new mortgages shot up.

Melbourne’s stage 4 restrictions threw a bit of a spanner in the works, as this has resulted in stifled property transactions, which in turn drags heavily on new mortgage approvals across all buyer channels, in particular with Melbourne presenting Australia’s biggest greenfield housing market.

My expectation is that as soon as restrictions start being lifted in Melbourne, we will see an uptick in the demand for housing and this will surely reflect in the value of loans approved shooting up again.