Growth in demand for home loans continues to wallow at near historically low levels - and demand for other forms of personal credit, including credit cards and margin loans, is in outright retreat.Monthly data from APRA and the Reserve Bank on demand for credit shows no deviation from the consistent theme of 2011, which has been one of households sorting out their balance sheets, limiting their recourse to debt and lifting their savings.The RBA's measure of growth in home loans for the month of October shows that on a 12-month basis the rate of growth is 5.7 per cent, the lowest level of annual growth since the central bank began collecting this data in the late 1970s.One minor shift in the trend is that on a quarterly basis the rate of growth in home loans has lifted over the last couple of months. According to this view the low point in the cycle was around June and July (with the data already allowing for seasonal factors).Other consumer credit trends are unfavourable for lenders, assuming asset growth is a business target.The pronounced fall in the level of margin lending (which declined by $4 billion to around $16 billion over a year) is the driver of decline in overall levels of personal lending.Credit card balances fell for the third month in a row in September, another first for an RBA credit indicator.