Big banks losing their grip on the mortgage market

The big banks' grip on the mortgage market appears to be weakening. Mortgage aggregator AFG reported that the majors' share of mortgages written by its brokers in October was 71.7 - the smallest share recorded over the past couple of years.

Early last year, the big banks accounted for almost 80 per cent of AFG's business.

As the mortgage market has maintained its steady improvement, brokers have been looking to add new lenders to their panels and offer a wider variety of loans.

AFG processed 10,463 loans in October, worth A$4.7 billion - up 8.9 per cent from $4.4 billion in September. It was the first time the company had processed 10,000 mortgages in a month.

Property investor participation in the mortgage market eased, falling from 40.3 per cent of sales on September to 38.7 per cent in October.

And first-home buyer participation continued to fall - down from 8.4 per cent in September to 7.2 per cent in April.