The value of housing loans hit a two-year high in December, putting an early question mark over a March interest rate cut.
The result may have been helped by the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) interest rate cuts in November and December and the widespread expectation of more to come.
Just how significant the interest rate effect may have been will always be in doubt, but it certainly can't have hurt demand for housing credit.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Monday showed the number of loans to intending owner-occupiers rose by 2.3 per cent in seasonally-adjusted terms December.
The monthly rise in value terms was similar, at 2.0 per cent, but the value of investor loan approvals jumped by 7.5 per cent.
The rise took the total value of loan approvals - investors and homebuyers combined - up by 3.8 per cent to its highest level since December 2009.
Despite December's gain, the value of housing lending approvals is still only around 19 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), or possibly even a little less, depending on how the December quarter GDP figure turns out.
Lending has been substantially higher than that for most of the past decade, when it has averaged 23.7 per cent of GDP.
So, it has some way to go before returning to the norm of the past decade.
On the other hand, lending is already above the norm of the decade before that, when approvals averaged 14.5 per cent of GDP.
So, arguably, that lending is already above a level that might be considered normal - or at least that it should not be thought of as too low.
In any case, lending has picked up.
And, given that the RBA keeps close tabs on bank activity, it is possible that the strength in lending in December figured in the decision on February 7 to keep the cash rate steady.
For this indicator, the question now is whether the February decision took some of the heat out of demand for loans.
The earliest indications of that will not be available until the February housing finance figures are released by the ABS on April 11.
In the absence of any sign of a subsequent waning in loan demand, the December housing finance numbers constitute an early goal scored by the 'no rate cut' team.
Still, there are plenty of economic data releases between now and the next RBA policy meeting on March 6, so the market is not rushing to make a judgment.
Futures prices still indicate a consensus among traders that there is a two-in-three chance that the RBA in March will cut the cash rate to 4.0 per cent from 4.25 per cent.
