Morning Briefing: Refinancing rockets after August rate drop

​​​​​​​Refinancing of residential mortgages has shot up since the August cash rate cut, according to new figures... Unaffordable housing in Government sights, Morrison says...

Refinancing rockets after August rate drop   
Refinancing of residential mortgages has shot up since the August cash rate cut, according to figures from Aussie Home Loans.

Aussie’s 2016 September quarter loan data shows an 11 % rise in refinancing deals to $1.8 billion through the mortgage broker. Refinancing surged from 35% to 40% of Aussie’s total loan volume over the three months, compared with the previous corresponding period in 2015.

Aussie CEO James Symond said, “The surge in refinancing reflects both the effects of the Reserve Bank’s cut in rates during August and the message getting through to borrowers that they can secure a better deal through a mortgage broker."  

Unaffordable housing in Government sights, Morrison says  
(Bloomberg) -- Australian states need to remove or simplify residential land planning regulations that have made homes “increasingly unaffordable” in the nation’s biggest cities, Treasurer Scott Morrison said.  

Insufficient land releases and complex development regulations must be addressed, Morrison said in the text of a speech being given in Sydney Monday. He’ll use a December meeting with his state counterparts to urge a freeing up of housing supply, an issue which will be a key focus of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s government, he said.  

“Of all the determinants of house prices in Australia, whether cyclical or structural, the most important factor behind rising prices has been the long running impediments to the supply side of the market,” Morrison said. While a three-year surge in Australian home prices paused at the end of last year after banks raised mortgage rates, the market has taken off again as a growing population tries to squeeze into too few properties.

Dwelling values in Sydney, which have almost doubled since the end of 2008, are up 14 percent this year through September, compared with a 9 percent gain across the nation’s other major cities, according to CoreLogic Inc. The recent rise defies an assessment by real-estate listing firm Domain last year that the boom was over, and is posing a potential headache for new central bank Governor Philip Lowe, who said this month that that fewer properties were changing hands and “some markets have strengthened recently.”