After a strong rise in July, the housing finance market took a breather in August.According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics housing finance figures, the value of new housing finance commitments fell by 1.2 per cent in August compared with the previous month (in seasonally adjusted terms).Lenders made housing finance commitments worth A$28 billion in August, which was up 16.7 per cent on August last year.The value of loans to owner-occupiers fell two per cent in August, while the value of loans to property investors fell 0.1 per cent.The number of new finance commitments for owner-occupiers fell 0.9 per cent in August, compared with the previous month.The ABS gave an update on its investigation into the robustness of its estimates of loans to first-home buyers. Concerns had been raised that under-reporting could occur if some lenders were only able to accurately report on buyers receiving first-home owner grants.The ABS said that its investigation indicated that some lenders had difficulty reporting on loans where the buyer was not receiving a grant.It said it was working with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to make it easier for lenders to report correctly. Some lenders are understood to have configured their reporting systems in a way that identifies a first-home buyer by asking borrowers if they have applied for a first-home owner grant. The problem is that several states have changed the conditions of their grants, so that only people buying newly-built properties are eligible. A first-home buyer purchasing an established house or unit may not be captured in the data.Distortions created by changes to grant schemes are not the only issue. Lenders and brokers say the growing propensity of first-home buyers to enter the market as investors and the trend for parents to use their retirement funds to buy properties for their children also muddy the water.The ABS said that an interim measure might be to estimate the extent of under-reporting and adjust the first-home buyer estimates.