Average Mortgage in Australia: What It Measures

The average mortgage in Australia was $731,000 for new owner-occupier dwelling loans in the June quarter 2026, on the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) original-series measure. The ABS release of 14 August 2026 excludes refinancing from this figure. It measures new accepted loan commitments, so it doesn’t tell you what existing borrowers still owe.

That distinction changes the answer you give a client. A new-loan average describes recent borrowing, while an outstanding-balance average describes debt remaining in an existing group of loans.

State the Current Dated Average

Australia’s published average new dwelling loan was $731,000 for owner-occupiers and $708,000 for investors in the June quarter 2026. Both figures are in Australian dollars, use original data and exclude refinancing. They come from the ABS owner-occupier and investor average loan-size charts, released on 14 August 2026.

As at 3 October 2026, the June quarter release is the latest applicable Lending Indicators snapshot. New commitments change the figures each quarter. The next release is scheduled for 11 November 2026.

Use the owner-occupier figure when discussing new loans for homes people intend to live in. Use the investor figure for new investment-property dwelling loans. Neither is an average across every Australian mortgage account.

Define What the Dataset Measures

An average new loan size is the total value of eligible commitments divided by their number for the same population and period. The numerator is the dollars committed. The denominator is the eligible loan commitments, not Australia’s population or the number of properties advertised for sale.

Under the ABS methodology, a borrower-accepted commitment exists after approval, issue of a contract or offer and the borrower’s acceptance. It can precede settlement.

The dwelling series covers construction and purchases of new or existing dwellings. Residential land and alterations and additions have separate series. The headline averages above exclude both internal and external refinancing.

These averages are means.

A median is the middle loan amount after ordering individual loans by size. A few large loans can raise the mean without moving the median by the same amount. The release’s average loan-size charts don’t publish a median, so $731,000 cannot be relabelled as Australia’s median mortgage.

The charts use original data, which retains seasonal effects. The release also has seasonally adjusted values and counts. Dividing those adjusted series produces a different measure, so it isn’t a reconstruction of the original average.

ABS receives aggregate lender reports instead of individual loan records. Lender corrections and seasonal adjustments can revise the data.

The release also flags reporting problems in internal-refinancing values and expects revisions. That warning matters when comparing refinance series, although refinancing is excluded from the headline averages used here.

Compare New Loans and Outstanding Balances

New-loan size measures borrowing accepted during a period, while an outstanding mortgage balance measures debt remaining at a point in time. Existing loans include borrowers who have already reduced their principal, as well as more recent borrowers.

In a fictional example, a borrower takes a $700,000 loan and later owes $520,000. The original loan and later balance answer different questions, even though they belong to the same borrower. Redraws, extra borrowing and refinancing can change the later balance again.

An average mortgage balance needs total outstanding balances and a matching count of outstanding loans from the same dataset and date. For household-debt averages, the denominator is households. Those denominators cannot be exchanged.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) statistical tables list lending and credit aggregates in Table D2 and housing lending rates in Table F6. Total housing credit is an aggregate debt measure.

An average interest rate is a percentage. Neither supplies an average mortgage balance on its own, and a dwelling-price series measures property values.

For the question, How many mortgages are there in Australia?, distinguish existing loans from new commitments. ABS reports 134,225 new dwelling commitments for the June quarter 2026, seasonally adjusted and excluding refinancing. That quarterly count isn’t the total number of active mortgages, mortgage holders or mortgaged households.

Compare States and Borrower Types

The same ABS release allows state comparisons within each borrower type on the same original-data basis. The following figures are new dwelling loan averages for the June quarter 2026, released on 14 August 2026. All amounts are Australian dollars and exclude refinancing.

Geography	Owner-occupier average	Investor average
Australia	$731,000	$708,000
New South Wales	$842,000	$851,000
Victoria	$664,000	$604,000
Queensland	$751,000	$713,000
South Australia	$672,000	$642,000
Western Australia	$720,000	$678,000
Tasmania	$516,000	$524,000
Northern Territory	$545,000	$443,000
Australian Capital Territory	$666,000	$682,000

The table uses the ABS published average loan-size charts, whose source units are thousands of dollars. It preserves the published rounding and doesn’t recalculate the averages from rounded totals.

Victoria’s figure includes regional areas and other cities. It isn’t a Melbourne average. This release provides state and territory comparisons, without a Melbourne-only average in these charts.

Geography changes the mix of properties and loan amounts. A shift towards larger new loans can raise an average even if existing borrowers’ balances haven’t increased. Changing the share of investors or first home buyers also changes the population being compared.

First-home-buyer commitments are a separate breakdown, including owner-occupier data in ABS Table 24 and investor data in Table 25. The table above compares all owner-occupiers with all investors. It doesn’t substitute either group for first home buyers or add first home buyers to a total that already includes them.

Adding refinance commitments would also change the calculation’s population. Compare averages only when their geography, purpose, reference period and treatment of refinancing match.

Explain What an Average Cannot Predict

A market average can’t establish a client’s borrowing capacity, affordable repayment, deposit requirement, interest rate, loan structure or approval outcome. Each depends on facts about that borrower and the proposed loan.

Consider this fictional contrast against the $731,000 owner-occupier average. These are proposed amounts, not approved loans or calculated borrowing limits.

Client facts	Borrower A	Borrower B
Proposed loan	$600,000, below the average	$850,000, above the average
Verified gross annual income	$130,000	$250,000 combined
Liabilities	A car loan and credit card limit	No car loan, with a smaller card limit
Living expenses	Higher childcare costs	Lower regular household costs
Deposit and security	$150,000 deposit on a $750,000 home	$350,000 deposit on a $1,200,000 home
Objective	Keep cash available for family costs	Buy a larger home while retaining separate emergency savings

The proposed loans differ because the households and purchases differ.

Borrower A’s smaller amount can still fail a lender’s assessment. Borrower B’s larger amount can fit a lender’s rules, subject to assessment. Being above or below the market average decides neither result.

Move From Market Context to Client Assessment

Replace the headline average with verified client facts before assessing an individual loan. Collect the following inputs and record their evidence or assumptions.

• Income amounts and employment or business records, including which income is regular and which is variable.
• Actual living expenses, dependants and expected changes to household costs.
• Existing debts, repayments and credit limits, including debts the client plans to close.
• Accessible deposit funds, their source and the cash needed for purchase costs.
• Property address, type, purchase price and the lender’s valuation where available.
• Loan purpose, requested amount and the client’s objectives.
• Proposed term, repayment method, interest rate and the lender’s assessment-rate assumptions.

Loan serviceability explains how income and expenses affect the amount a lender assesses the borrower can repay. Use the mortgage application process to turn the verified facts into documents and a submission. Keep repayment figures and modelling with the average mortgage repayments guide.

A broker can use Bulma’s Scenario Planner to compare a client’s facts against 52+ lenders’ policies and calculate borrowing power using each lender’s servicing inputs. Its answers quote the policy wording. The lender’s own assessment sets the final figure, so the national average doesn’t become a target loan amount.

Loan Term and Payoff Context

The contractual loan term is the agreed period for repaying a loan. Observed time to pay off a mortgage is the elapsed time until the debt is actually cleared. The two can differ because of extra repayments, later borrowing or refinancing.

Moneysmart’s home-loan guide, updated on 16 September 2026, uses 25-year and 30-year terms as examples. These are contract choices, not a measured national average term or payoff time for Australian borrowers.

The June quarter 2026 Lending Indicators population is new accepted commitments during that quarter. Its loan-size statistics don’t follow those borrowers until repayment, so they cannot establish an average time to pay off a mortgage. Closing one account through refinancing can leave the borrower with housing debt under a new contract.

Keep age-band balances and payoff measures with the mortgage-by-age guide. For an individual assessment, record the client’s proposed term and remaining debt separately, then assess whether that loan meets their needs.