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The latest Monthly Authorised Deposit-taking Institution (ADI) Statistics from APRA has highlighted the growth in lending over the month of December 2024.
Loans to non-financial businesses grew 0.47 per cent between November and December to a total of $1.09 trillion. The year to December 2024 showed far more substantial increases, with loan books up from $1.01 trillion, an increase of 8.5 per cent.
Comparatively, housing loan books grew 0.5 per cent between November 2024 and December 2024 to a total of $2.28 trillion. The yearly results from December 2023 showed an increase of 5.4 per cent.
While there is certainly far more money on the residential side of lending, there is clearly a growing demand for commercial and asset finance loans.
Despite this, brokers may not be taking advantage of the opportunity. As revealed in the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia’s (MFAA) Industry Intelligence Service report, as of March 2024, there were a total of 22,031 brokers. Just 6,755 of these brokers were also writing commercial loans.
With the growth of business lending far exceeding residential over the year, brokers who tap into this market could stand to benefit enormously.
Clearly, there are many who recognise the opportunity, as the MFAA research revealed that between October 2023 and March 2024, the number of mortgage brokers also writing commercial loans grew 15.2 per cent. When compared to the same period the previous year, there was a 19.5 per cent increase.
As of the October 2018 to March 2019 period, there were just 3,481 mortgage brokers writing commercial loans. Brokers appear to have realised the opportunity to branch out.
The value of commercial lending settled by mortgage brokers has also seen immense increases over the last few years. Between October 2018 and March 2019, the value was $8.79 billion. This grew to $20.31 billion as of the same period in 2024, an increase of 131 per cent.
Breaking down the APRA data further, owner-occupied borrowers saw a greater rise in loans over investors.
As of December 2024, owner-occupier loan books totalled $1.55 trillion. This was up from $1.54 trillion the month prior (0.5 per cent rise) and up from $1.46 trillion in December 2023 (5.7 per cent rise).
On the other hand, investor loan books totalled $729 billion as of December 2024, up from $725 billion in November (0.7 per cent rise). December 2023 was a total of $697 billion, showing a 4.7 per cent increase year on year.
[Related: Shining light on commercial and asset finance]
