Investor mortgage lending growth back within APRA's target range
The proportion of investor loans, interest-only loans and high loan-to-valuation ratio loans in new mortgage lending fell in the September quarter, indicating that the regulatory push to slow the growth in risky housing finance is working.According to the latest Australian Prudential Regulation Authority figures on the property exposures of authorised deposit-taking institutions, investment loans made up 34.7 per cent of the value of the A$94.9 billion of total new mortgage lending in September quarter.That number was down from 42.7 per cent in the June quarter and 41.7 per cent in the March quarter.The value of investor loan balances in the September quarter was $509 billion - down from $512 billion in the June quarter.The value of new investor loans in the September quarter was $32.9 billion - down from $41.1 billion in the June quarter.Interest-only loans made up 41.1 per cent of the value of new mortgage lending in the September quarter - down from 45.9 per cent in the June quarter and 43.1 per cent in the March quarter.Loans approved with loan-to-valuation ratios above 90 per cent accounted for 9.4 per cent of the value of new mortgage lending in the September quarter - down from 10.7 per cent in the June quarter and 11.1 per cent in the March quarter.Loans with LVRs between 80 per cent and 90 per cent accounted for 14.1 per cent of the value of new mortgage lending in the September quarter - down from 14.3 per cent in the June quarter but up from 13.4 per cent in the March quarter.ADIs' total mortgage exposure at the end of September was $1.35 trillion - an increase of nine per cent compared with the same period last year.Owner-occupier loans, which accounted for 62 per cent of the total, grew by 8.9 per cent over the year to September.Investor loans, which accounted for 38 per cent of the total, grew by 9.1 per cent over the year to September. This is within APRA's target range of ten per cent.APRA cautioned that the statistics were subject to revisions. Suncorp had re-submitted data covering the period from December 2012 to June 2015.