Morning Briefing: APRA signals next target in real estate lending crackdown

Commercial real estate lending could soon face similar restrictions to that of the residential sector... Sales figures show "improving trend" for regional markets...

APRA signals next target in real estate lending crackdown
Commercial real estate lending could soon face similar restrictions to that of the residential sector as regulators switch their focus.

After stepping in to slow the growth of residential investor lending last year, it appears the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has similar concerns about the growth of lending for commercial real estate purposes.

According to a report in The Australian, APRA executive general manager for supervisory support Charles Littrell told the audience at a Centre for International Finance and Regulation event in Sydney last week that the regulator will begin to take a closer look at the commercial lending sector.

“In 1990 the four major banks had 40% of the banking market; now they’ve got 80%,” The Australian reported Littrell as saying.

“They’re all in the same business model, they’re all hugely ­exposed to each other ... and we don’t quite know what would happen if that business model gets whacked by external stress all at once. So there is a lot of conventional work at our end ­focusing on sound lending and in fact now we’re dialling up our systemic supervisory focus on commercial real estate,” Littrell reportedly said.

According to The Australian, Littrell said commercial real estate lending is usually what “goes wrong” for the Australian banking sector and that APRA is concerned that growth in commercial loans is currently in double digit territory.

Sales figures show "improving trend" for regional markets
The 12 months to the end of March 2016 saw a decline in both the number and value of residential properties sold according to a recent analysis of the country’s property market.

The analysis from CoreLogic shows that in the year to March 2016 467,993 dwellings were sold across Australia, 6.7% less than the number sold over the previous 12-month period.

Those sales were worth a combined value of $281.2 billion, which was 2% lower than the total value of all dwellings sold in the 12 months to March 2015.

While the 12-month period saw a nation-wide decline, it wasn’t felt evenly across all markets, with figures showing regional areas out preformed their capital city counterpart.

“The difference in sales volumes and the value of sales between capital city and regional markets highlights that regional housing markets are starting to show an improving trend,” CoreLogic research analyst Cameron Kusher said.

(Your Investment Property)