On January 1 the Reserve Bank increased the cap on banks from 10 per cent to 15 per cent of lending to home buyers with a deposit of less than 20 per cent. Investors also received a slight reprieve with the equity requirements reducing from 40 per cent to 35 per cent with 5 per cent of lending to investors allowed outside of that. John Bolton, managing director of Squirrel Mortgages, said he had noticed two big changes since the lending restrictions on the banks were eased. "One - everyone is open. Last year for periods it was just really hard to do anything." Last year brokers reported having to go from bank to bank to see who had the capacity to lend with it changing on a weekly basis depending on what lending they had approved. Bolton said the cap increase from 10 to 15 per cent was not huge but it did alleviate capacity issues. Bolton also said the second change he had noticed was an increase in interest from first-home buyers. "There is a lot of enquiry around at the moment. We are looking at a lot of applications in that over 80 per cent space." Leave a Reply. |
James Twiss
Licensed Business Owner of Harcourts Four Seasons Realty 2017 Ltd Greg Roberts
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September 2020
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