Inflation in Australia Rises 5 2 Percent theepochtimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theepochtimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The value of owner-occupier refinances set a new record high in August, after $18.8 billion of mortgages were moved across lenders, according to new data.
Two weeks ago we flagged ‘the rising chances of a macroprudential policy intervention’ in Australia’s housing market and this week the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) acted, instructing banks to increase the minimum interest rate buffer they use when assessing the serviceability of home loan applications. The regulator said that it was worried that increases in the share of heavily indebted borrowers, and rising leverage in the household sector more broadly, were pushing up risks to financial stability. APRA reckons that its 50bp increase in the serviceability buffer will reduce maximum borrowing capacity for the typical borrower by around five per cent and judges that the likely impact on housing credit growth will be ‘fairly modest.’ But if the housing market doesn’t cool, more policy interventions are likely to follow.