This month’s newsletter covers a lot of ground, from home loans and personal loans to inflation and interest rates:

How big is the average loan?
Mortgage borrowing rises 23%
Why inflation expectations matter
Aussies set personal loan record

Owner-occupier first home buyers are taking out loans averaging $540,294 when entering the market.

That's based on money.com.au analysis of the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics mortgage data.

Meanwhile, refinancers are borrowing, on average, $587,569 if they're owner-occupiers and $639,433 if they're investors.

Even though some heat has come out of the property market over the past few months, mortgage activity remains high.

Borrowers took out $30.38 billion of home loans in August, which was 1.0% higher than the month before and 23.0% higher than the year before, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Owner-occupiers signed up for $18.67 billion of loans, which was 0.7% higher in monthly terms and 16.8% in annual terms.

Investors borrowed $11.71 billion – up 1.4% on the month and 34.2% on the year.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has raised the cash rate over the past couple of years to combat inflation and, now that inflation has been falling to more reasonable levels, may reduce the cash rate in the near future. So there was much interest in a speech that RBA Assistant Governor Sarah Hunter recently gave about inflation expectations.

“Macroeconomists generally think that a prerequisite for consistently achieving low and stable inflation over time is well-anchored inflation expectations,” she said.

That's because if workers believe inflation will be high, they will ask for higher wages; and if businesses believe prices will be higher, they will feel more confident about offering higher wages to attract workers. Both actions will lead to higher inflation. That's why inflation expectations can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ms Hunter said the RBA was “constantly alert for signs” that inflation expectations were no longer well-anchored, but added that the RBA was "not currently concerned that expectations could become de-anchored in the near term”.

Ms Hunter’s speech did not offer any signals for when the RBA might start reducing the cash rate. As a result, it would be prudent to keep budgeting for higher interest rates.

More consumers are taking out personal loans than ever before, the latest data has confirmed.

Borrowers signed up for a record $2.741 billion of personal loans in August, which was 2.0% higher than the month before and 15.3% higher than the year before, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.