# Queensland first-buyer loans slip to 5,646 as their average size jumps

ABS figures for the June quarter show fewer first home buyer loans in Queensland and a much larger average loan, while Equifax reports July applications down 25.2 per cent.

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Queensland lenders wrote 5,646 new home loans for first home buyers in the June quarter of 2026, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics Lending Indicators released on 14 August. That is 70 fewer than in the March quarter and 140 fewer than a year earlier, in seasonally adjusted terms. Four days later, on 18 August, Smart Property Investment reported Equifax figures showing first home buyer mortgage applications in Queensland were 25.2 per cent lower in July than in July 2025, the largest fall of any state.

The two releases measure different things. The ABS counts loans that lenders committed to between April and June. Equifax counts credit enquiries, which are made when a buyer applies. Read together they describe a first-buyer market in Queensland that is still producing loans at close to last year's pace, at a far higher average size, while the queue of new applicants behind them is shortening quickly.

<div class="keyfacts">
<div><b>5,646</b><span>Queensland first-buyer loans, June quarter 2026</span></div>
<div><b>$633,156</b><span>average Queensland first-buyer loan</span></div>
<div><b>25.2%</b><span>annual fall in July first-buyer applications</span></div>
</div>
<p class="src">ABS Lending Indicators, June quarter 2026, seasonally adjusted, state figures as tabulated by SA Treasury on 14 August 2026; Equifax, July 2026, reported by Smart Property Investment on 18 August.</p>

## The June quarter count

Nationally, the ABS recorded 29,319 owner-occupier first home buyer loan commitments in the June quarter, down 2.9 per cent, or 891 loans, from the March quarter. The value of those loans rose 0.2 per cent, which the bureau's release puts beside the fall in numbers: fewer loans, each a little larger. Against the June quarter of 2025, when there were 29,305, the national count was flat.

Queensland's result was milder than the national one over the quarter and weaker over the year. The state's 5,646 loans were 1.2 per cent below the March quarter's 5,716 and 2.4 per cent below the 5,786 recorded in the June quarter of 2025. Queensland accounted for 19.3 per cent of the national first-buyer count, behind Victoria and New South Wales.

The state-by-state figures come from a table of the ABS data published by the South Australian Department of Treasury and Finance on the day of the release.

<figure class="fig"><figcaption><b>First home buyer loan commitments by state</b><span>Number of loans, seasonally adjusted</span></figcaption>
<div class="scroll"><table class="tbl">
<thead><tr><th>State</th><th>June qtr 2025</th><th>March qtr 2026</th><th>June qtr 2026</th></tr></thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td>Victoria</td><td>9,806</td><td>9,732</td><td>9,407</td></tr>
<tr><td>New South Wales</td><td>6,799</td><td>7,495</td><td>6,937</td></tr>
<tr><td>Queensland</td><td>5,786</td><td>5,716</td><td>5,646</td></tr>
<tr><td>Western Australia</td><td>3,613</td><td>3,740</td><td>3,554</td></tr>
<tr><td>South Australia</td><td>1,773</td><td>1,813</td><td>2,181</td></tr>
<tr><td>Australia</td><td>29,305</td><td>30,210</td><td>29,319</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table></div>
<p class="src">ABS Lending Indicators, June quarter 2026, as tabulated by the SA Department of Treasury and Finance, 14 August 2026. Smaller jurisdictions are not shown; seasonally adjusted state figures do not sum to the national figure.</p></figure>

Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia all finished below both the March quarter and the June quarter of 2025. New South Wales dropped back from March but stayed above its level of a year earlier, and South Australia rose in each period. Queensland's line simply drifts down, by 70 loans a time.

## A much larger average loan

The more striking Queensland number is the size of the loan. The average first home buyer commitment in the state was $633,156 in the June quarter, up from $543,692 a year earlier. That is $89,464 more, a rise of 16.5 per cent in twelve months.

Across Australia the average first-buyer loan rose from $570,070 to $627,000 over the same period, a rise of $56,930 or 10.0 per cent. A year ago the Queensland average sat below the national one; it now sits above it. Among the states, only New South Wales, at $677,137, has a larger average first-buyer loan than Queensland. Victoria's is $564,665 and Western Australia's $599,297.

An average loan is not a price, and it moves for more than one reason. It rises when the homes first buyers purchase cost more. It also rises when buyers borrow a larger share of the price, which is what a smaller deposit means. Both forces have been at work: the expanded Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme has let first buyers purchase with less saved since 1 October 2025, and the ABS release also puts the average loan across all owner-occupiers at $731,000 nationally in June 2026 and $751,000 in Queensland.

The practical reading for a Queensland first buyer is that the typical loan being written is now well over $600,000, which is the figure against which lenders test repayments at current interest rates.

## The wider lending picture

The first-buyer numbers arrived inside a weak quarter for housing finance as a whole. The ABS reported 134,225 new loan commitments for dwellings, down 5.4 per cent, with a value of $97.648 billion, down 5.2 per cent or $5.4 billion. Owner-occupier loans fell 3.3 per cent to 81,626. Investor loans fell 8.6 per cent to 52,599, and their value dropped 10.2 per cent to $37.121 billion.

Dr Mish Tan, the ABS head of finance statistics, said in the release that lending "fell across all borrower types this quarter and returned to similar levels to this time last year." She described the fall in investor loans as the largest since the September quarter of 2022. Queensland's investor loan numbers fell 10.1 per cent, the third largest fall behind New South Wales at 15.5 per cent and Victoria at 14.2 per cent.

For first buyers the investor retreat cuts two ways. Investors compete for the same lower-priced houses and units that first buyers look at, so fewer investor loans can mean fewer rival bidders. The same conditions that push investors out, though, are the ones that limit what a first buyer can borrow. The Reserve Bank raised the cash rate in February, March and May this year, Savings.com.au noted in its June coverage of the Equifax series, and the federal Budget on 12 May announced changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax.

## July applications fall hardest in Queensland

The Equifax figures look past the June quarter. Its Consumer Credit Demand report for July, as reported by Smart Property Investment on 18 August, put first home buyer mortgage demand nationally 19.2 per cent below July 2025, a deeper fall than the 17.2 per cent recorded in June. The publication said demand had dropped 36.3 percentage points from its peak in December.

Queensland recorded the largest fall, at 25.2 per cent. Western Australia followed at 19.6 per cent and New South Wales at 18.3 per cent, with Victoria and South Australia at about 17 per cent each and the Australian Capital Territory at 14.3 per cent.

<figure class="fig"><figcaption><b>First home buyer mortgage applications, July 2026</b><span>Fall from July 2025, per cent</span></figcaption>
<div class="scroll"><svg viewBox="0 0 680 196" role="img" aria-label="Bar chart: first home buyer mortgage applications in July 2026 fell 25.2 per cent in Queensland, 19.6 per cent in Western Australia, 18.3 per cent in New South Wales and 14.3 per cent in the Australian Capital Territory.">
<text class="lb" x="176" y="33" text-anchor="end">Queensland</text><rect class="bar" x="190" y="14" width="101" height="28" rx="4"/><text class="lb" x="301" y="33">25.2%</text>
<text class="lb" x="176" y="79" text-anchor="end">Western Australia</text><rect class="bar" x="190" y="60" width="78" height="28" rx="4"/><text class="lb" x="278" y="79">19.6%</text>
<text class="lb" x="176" y="125" text-anchor="end">New South Wales</text><rect class="bar" x="190" y="106" width="73" height="28" rx="4"/><text class="lb" x="273" y="125">18.3%</text>
<text class="lb" x="176" y="171" text-anchor="end">ACT</text><rect class="bar" x="190" y="152" width="57" height="28" rx="4"/><text class="lb" x="257" y="171">14.3%</text>
</svg></div>
<p class="src">Equifax Consumer Credit Demand, July 2026, as reported by Smart Property Investment on 18 August 2026. Longer bars are larger falls.</p></figure>

It is the third month in a row in which Queensland has led the falls. Savings.com.au reported the state's first-buyer applications down 16.2 per cent in May, the largest fall of any state that month, and down 20.8 per cent in June, again the largest. From 16.2 to 20.8 to 25.2 per cent, the annual decline has deepened by between four and five points each month.

Younger applicants account for much of it. Equifax's July figures show demand from borrowers aged 18 to 25 down 22.4 per cent and from those aged 26 to 35 down 20.9 per cent. Kevin James, Equifax's chief solutions officer, attributed the turn to affordability pressure meeting the end of the momentum seen late in 2025, according to the report.

## Why the two series tell different stories

A fall of 2.4 per cent in loans and a fall of 25.2 per cent in applications can both be true for the same state. Three things separate them.

The first is timing. The ABS quarter ends on 30 June and a commitment follows an application by weeks. A buyer counted by the ABS in May may have applied in March or April. The Equifax July figure describes people who started the process after the May rate rise and the Budget.

The second is the base. Equifax compares each month with the same month a year earlier. The report describes a surge in first-buyer demand around the expansion of the deposit scheme, peaking in December 2025, so each new month is being measured against a stronger one.

The third is what is counted. An enquiry is recorded when a lender checks a credit file, and one buyer may generate more than one. In its second-quarter analysis, published in early August, Equifax said the national average mortgage enquiry amount fell by $8,000 between March and June, and that Brisbane's fell by $15,000, more than Sydney's $12,000 or Melbourne's $11,000. Applicants in Brisbane were asking for less at the same time as the ABS average loan was rising, which suggests that the buyers still getting to commitment are those borrowing more, while smaller applications are falling away.

## What comes next

The September quarter Lending Indicators will show how much of the fall in applications turns into fewer loans. The last three Equifax releases point to a weaker count in Queensland, but applications do not convert to commitments at a fixed rate and the ABS series has so far moved by one or two per cent a quarter in the state, not by twenty.

Equifax's own measure of overall mortgage demand fell 16.4 per cent in July from a year earlier, The Adviser reported, the fourth consecutive monthly decline on that basis. Its August figures are due in September.

For a first buyer in Queensland the numbers describe conditions more than they prescribe anything. There are fewer first buyers applying than a year ago and fewer investors borrowing. Those who do reach a loan are taking on, on average, about $89,000 more debt than first buyers did in the middle of 2025.