National mortgage sales have fallen into a recession according to sales figures released by the Australian Financial Group (AFG) yesterday.
The aggregator said June sales declined by 9.2 per cent to 5,939, which resulted in negative growth for two successive quarters – the definition of an economic recession.
Compared to June 2007, AFG’s mortgage sales are down 22 per cent, or $600 million.
AFG’s Mortgage Index also showed that the average mortgage size had increased by 7.5 per cent in the year to June to $341,000.
Mark Hewitt, AFG general manager of sales and operations said this indicated that “many people who normally take out smaller to medium size mortgages just can’t afford to”.
Published: 04-07-08
Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?
Make The Adviser a preferred news source on Google.
Click here to add The Adviser as a preferred news source.
