investment: Its stated aim was to ensure that banks kept growth in residential investment lending to 10 per cent or less, according to Australian Broadcasting Corporation. However, the latest Bureau of Statistics housing finance figures show that, after already surging 7.1 per cent in March, new investor lending grew 2.6 per cent that month, seasonally adjusted. Last December, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority announced tighter home lending standards, particularly for property investors. That was a little lower than the value of owner-occupied loans but, excluding refinancing, investors still accounted for half of all new loans nationally. Discounts that were otherwise applied to investment lending are being removed. Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan said the numbers show that any measures taken by APRA up to the end of April had no effect. "Nothing from these numbers indicates that macroprudential measures were impacting," he said. "If anything it seems to be the other way around, that the February rate cut seems to have given a little bit of a lift to activity across both investor and owner-occupier segments." APRA tightens loan restrictions in May However, perhaps having seen the strong home lending figures over the previous two months, APRA appears to have stepped up its efforts to rein in investor loans. "We've seen quite big changes ring through in the last three to four weeks, not really before then," observed Bruce Carr, the principal of Loanscape, a independent mortgage broker in south-west Sydney.
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