Across Australia, housing affordability improved in the first quarter of this year; however, both the number of first-home buyers and the size of loans have decreased.

First-home buyers now make up 13.4% of total owner-occupied housing, according to the latest Adelaide Bank/REIA Housing Affordability Report.

Nationwide, the number of first-home buyers saw a decrease from December 2016 to March 2017, from 23,290 to 20,677. Meanwhile, the average loan size also went down from $323,700 to $313,433, according to Malcolm Gunning, president of the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA).

“Over the quarter, the average loan size to first-home buyers increased in South Australia and Tasmania,” Gunning said. “It will be interesting to see the effects that stamp duty exemptions and concessions announced in Victoria and more recently in NSW have on first-home buyers.”

With these changes just around the corner, Gunning thinks more first-home buyers will be enticed to venture into the property market. “However, it will take time for any response to filter into our data as the changes do not come into effect until 1 July 2017 in either state,” he said.

The report also found that the median family income needed to make an average loan repayment decreased to 30.4%, a fall of 1.3 per cent. A minor increase was noted for rents, as the proportion of median family income needed to make rent payments rose over the first quarter of this year by 0.1% to 24.6%.

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