It’s supposed to be part of the “rebalancing” of the economy, but there are signs that the housing industry is getting a bit unbalanced itself.

The value of housing loans approved in September was five per cent higher than in August.

It was a strong rise which, even allowing for the small, pre-election dip in August, confirmed a strong upward trend.

The value of approvals was up by 17 per cent from a year earlier, after annual rises of eight per cent the previous year and less than two per cent the year before that.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is helping to drive this growth in lending with its low interest rate policy.

The payoff is in the value of lending for new housing, where the RBA hopes growth will help to “rebalance” the economy as investment in resources projects wanes.

Including loans to investors, finance identified as heading into new or to-be-built housing rose to $3.2 billion in September, up by four per cent in the month and 22 per cent over the year.

That means banks and other lenders are pumping an extra $600 million a month into the housing industry, compared with the average of last year.

In fact there’s probably a fair bit more than that.

Existing owners downsizing and using part of the proceeds to extend or renovate their next home aren’t directly counted in these new housing figures.

And buyers sourcing their finance from offshore, including through offshore branches of Australian banks, aren’t in these figures either.

And there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that they’re having an impact on the market in some areas.

In any case, demand for new housing in clearly on the rise.

But it’s coming at a cost.

First home buyers are an endangered species.

The value of lending to newbies in September was just nine per cent of the total going to homebuyers and investors, even leaving refinancing loans out of the total.

There’s also a divergence between investors and home buyers, with lending to investors up by 22 per cent over the year to September, while non refinancing loans to home buyers rose by 13 per cent, barely half the pace.

Loans going to investors rose to 45.4 per cent of the total (not counting refinancing), from 43.5 per cent a year.

The last time that proportion rose over 45 per cent, and the last time lending to new home buyers fell below 10 per cent, was in late 2003 and early 2004.

At that point, prices peaked and lagged behind growth in consumer prices for the following two and a half years.