New investment mortgage loans increased to $39.8 in Q3 2025

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released its quarterly financial report on lending indicators for September 2025. According to this publication, there is positive growth for both the number and value of investor and owner-occupied loans. More owner-occupied commitments have been made in comparison to investor loans, however, the latter outpaces the former in growth rate. 

Key stats you need to know

• The number of new investment loans has reached 57,624, the highest level since the March quarter of 2022. 

• New investment loans valued $39.8 billion, a new high since the September quarter of 2024.

• The number of total loan commitments for dwellings have reached up to 141,470, valued at $98 billion.

Investor loan commitments outpace owner-occupied loans in growth rate

• New investment loans occupy 40% of the total loan commitments in September 2025.

• Owner-occupied loans continue to dominate the field in total commitments, reaching  83,846. 

New investor loans have increased by 13.6% from the previous quarter, reaching numbers of 57,624. This is a steep increase compared to owner-occupied loans, which have seen a growth rate of 2% for the number of loans. Similarly, the value of owner-occupied loans reached $58.2 billion, seeing a growth of 4.7% from last quarter. Investor loans, on the other hand, have seen a 17.6% increase, reaching $39.8 billion. The numbers reveal that although owner-occupied loans exceed that of investor loans, the latter is growing at a faster pace. This is indicative of “falling borrowing costs and low vacancy rates [creating] favourable conditions for investors,” according to the ABS head of finance statistics, Dr. Mish Tan.

Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and Victoria lead rise in investment loans and owner-occupied loans

• Australian Capital Territory records the fastest growing number of both investment and owner-occupied loans. 

The Australian Capital Territory led the most growth in the number of investment loans at 27.8%, followed by New South Wales (19%), and Victoria (18.5%). Specific to owner-occupied loans, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and Victoria, drove the increase of commitments at 6.7%, 4.9%, and 2.4%, respectively. These three states have the fastest growth rates in the number of both investment and owner-occupied loans. 

Internal refinanced investor loan commitments rise in September

• The number of refinanced investor loan commitments, both internal and external, have grown by at least 8%.

• The growth rate of internal refinances for both owner-occupied and investor loans outpace that of external refinanced commitments. 

For investor loans, September saw external refinances grow at 8.4%, numbered at 37,303. This number is valued at $24.5 billion, and grew by 9.7% compared to last month. Whereas for internal refinances, the growth rate for the number and value of loans rose by 8.9% and 14%, respectively.

As for owner-occupiers, the number of external refinanced loans reached 67,051, the largest across the board. However, the growth rate of this refinancing is at 0.1%. By contrast, internal refinanced loans have seen a 4.5% growth in September. Similarly, external refinanced loans are valued at 41.3$ and have grown by 2.1%, while internal refinanced loans have grown by 6.5%. 

“This shows that more Australians are choosing to revise their current mortgage plan while staying with the same lender in September, compared to June 2025.” Says Michael Johnson, Director of Agile Market Intelligence. 

Source: ABS Quarterly Investment Loans Statistics Highlights

About the research

Statistics in this article were acquired by Agile Market Intelligence from ABS’ quarterly Lending indicators statistics (September 2025). The dataset covers loans of new borrower-accepted finance commitments for housing, personal, and business loans. The release also covers year-on-year changes as well as loan dwellings per state in Australia. 

Agile Market Intelligence also conducts Broker Pulse, a monthly survey of residential and commercial mortgage lenders. It is a community-driven knowledge base of lender performance that offers transparency to the market by surfacing these collective insights from the broker community. This empowers brokers to make informed decisions and enables lenders to benchmark and improve performance.

Participating brokers receive access to a bird’s-eye view of the lender benchmarking data each month. To sign up or for more information visit www.brokerpulse.com.au.