More people with home loans are finding it harder to meet the repayments compared to last year, a report has found.

"Just over half of the respondents acknowledged that their monthly mortgage repayments were more than 30 per cent of their gross household income," the annual Australian mortgage report from financial advisory firm Deloitte said."Of that group, more than 50 per cent were stretched or at their maximum repayment limit," the report said."This has increased only marginally from the 2007 survey.

"Of the 1480 respondents to Deloitte's survey, 65 per cent with repayments worth more than 40 per cent of their gross household income were stretched or at their maximum limit."Older and/or higher income earners are not as comfortable as they were last year," Deloitte Actuaries and Consultants banking partner James Hickey said.

In the last decade, house prices in Australia had risen to almost nine times the average income.This had left borrowers at significant risk when interest rates rose sharply and house prices remained constant or fell.The risk could be mitigated by the greater availability of land supply, the use of employment continuation insurance, shared equity mortgages or salary-adjusted mortgages.

The Deloitte report said total outstanding mortgage lending across Australia continued to grow annually at around 10 per cent despite volatile economic conditions.Settlements however, were subdued, down more than 20 per cent to less than $20 billion a month since September 2007."There is no doubt that the global economic conditions have impacted on both the availability of mortgage funding and consumer sentiment in relation to mortgage settlements," Mr Hickey said

."However, the ability of our major banks to actively lend in the market, together with the various government and Reserve Bank of Australia actions to support stimulus, is likely to put a resilient floor under the housing market for the year ahead."The report said demand for housing continued to be fueled by population growth - projected at around 1.5 per cent per anumn - and a shortfall in property supply relative to demand.But the ongoing volatility of the cost of funding, and the exposure of Australian lenders to wholesale funding as a result of limited local deposits, would continue to place pressure on the mortgage rates that the banks could offer.

Slowing economic growth and rising unemployment could also have an adverse impact upon lending.