The Australian housing market continues to 'rebalance', although in most categories, the unvarnished trend has been to follow the stats from March downwards.Commitments are down by 0.8 per cent on the year prior. In trend terms, lending fell for the fourth straight month, down by 0.7 per cent in March.This has manifested itself in some areas over others and, as Ryan Felsman, Commsec's senior economist pointed out in a note to clients yesterday, in some places home prices have fallen, notably in Sydney and Melbourne.The volume of loans, overall, is declining, even if the volume of lending in some categories of loans has increased slightly: The number of loans by home owners fell by 1.4 per cent in April - the fifth consecutive monthly decline. Loans are down by 2.9 per cent on the year. Excluding refinancing of dwellings, the number of loans fell by 1.9 per cent.This is in part due to the tightening of lending standards, yet still borrowing edged up, in patches. ABS figures show total new lending commitments (housing, personal, commercial and lease finance) rose by 0.9 per cent in April to $69.6 billion. ABS numbers indicate alterations and additions fell by 2.9 per cent - the seventh consecutive decline - and were down by 19.0 per cent over the year - the weakest annual growth rate in 7.5 years. All housing finance is up 3.7 per cent over the year.That said, credit card also debt fell in April as Aussies tightened their belts, Commsec noticed.One bright spot: in original terms, the number of first home buyer commitments as a percentage of total owner occupied housing finance commitments rose slightly to 17.6 per cent in April 2018, up from 17.4 per cent in March 2018.Between March 2018 and April 2018, the average loan size for first home buyers rose A$7,200 to $342,800. The average loan size for all owner occupied housing commitments rose $10,200 to $398,500 for the same period.