AFG achieves highest ever monthly mortgage sales of $3.2 billion in April

Mortgage broker AFG processed $3.2 billion in mortgages over April, 40% higher than the $2.2 billion in mortgages it wrote in April 2012 - and its best month on record.

This was just higher than its previous record-breaking month in March, when the broker arranged $3.17 billion in home loans.

The April 2013 results bucked the trend over the past three years, when April figures have been lower than in March, but this year’s surge bucked the trend.

AFG has 10% of the total mortgage market in Australia with its figures “usually indicative of the ABS housing finance report published six weeks later.

‘With greater certainty that low rates will be with us for some time, we’re seeing more confidence in the market than for some time,” says Mark Hewitt, general manager of sales and operations at AFG.

“But recovery, like property price growth, is very patchy.

“For example, in both NSW and Queensland first-home buyers comprise only 3.5% of the market – about a quarter of the long term figure.”

Overall, 12.4% of home loans in April were for first-home buyers with 35.9% issued to property investors and 35.6% refinanced home loans.

Fixed rate loans, already at an all-time AFG high of 29.6% in March, rose to a new record of 30.7% of all home loan types in April, as more borrowers choose to lock in historically low rates.

A report by Mortgage Choice recorded fixed-rate home loan demand rising to 28% in April, the highest level in five years.

Non-major bank lenders managed to claw back some market share, rising from 20.7% in March to 21.1% in April.

This figures is, however, still lower than previous months, and a peak of 24.0% in September 2012.