21660 – First Home Buyer Lending Share

First Home Buyer Lending Share (21660) measures first home buyers’ share of new lending commitments, one observable response to the cost-of-capital and regulatory settings that Interest Rates (21210) and Banking & Lending Regulation (21350) measure. It combines three readings: the first home buyer share of owner-occupier lending nationally, the same share averaged across the eight states and territories, and the first home buyer share of investor lending.

Primary metric: Node Composite Z-Score (Z₂₁₆₆₀)

Metric typology: equal-weighted three-input composite of first home buyer lending shares.

Tier-1 sovereign source. ABS 5601.0, Lending Indicators, housing finance tables for first home buyer and investor commitments, quarterly. No commercial data dependency exists in the node.

The certified composite for the March quarter 2026 draws on all three inputs, each standardised against its own baseline.

The state average is the unweighted mean of eight state and territory Z-scores, each standardised against that state’s own baseline:

The chart below shows the node’s reading for every quarter from March 2011. All three inputs are present from September 2019, when the investor series begins.

The certified composite of +0.0791σ (Q1 2026) sits close to its baseline average. Position. 23.1, ranked against 27 full-coverage quarters from September 2019 to March 2026, which places the reading in the lower third of that record.

The composite is near average because its inputs point in opposite directions. First home buyers are taking a larger share of owner-occupier lending than usual, +0.9677σ nationally and +0.9138σ on the state average, while their share of investor lending sits well below its average at −1.6441σ. Western Australia (−0.5312σ) is the only state reading below average; the Australian Capital Territory (+1.9443σ) and Tasmania (+1.8695σ) are the highest.

The other five components of Market Sentiment & Behavioural Analysis (21600).

First Home Buyer Lending Share (21660) holds Active status. The certified composite Z-score is +0.0791σ (Q1 2026), ranked 23.1 against 27 full-coverage quarters, constructed exclusively from Tier-1 ABS data. The investor input’s baseline holds 26 quarters, from Q3 2019, shorter than the standard 2011–2025 window, and is disclosed rather than smoothed over.