As investors pile back into red-hot property markets, regulators — and even the banks themselves — are on high alert for signs of trouble.
As Capital Brief reported this morning, Commonwealth Bank has followed Macquarie’s lead in tightening new home lending to trusts, as a flood of TikTok videos push more investors to speculate in a market alive with “animal spirits”.
The move came a day after the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) sounded the alarm on the Australian housing market, calling it a significant risk to financial stability, particularly due to high debt-to-income borrowers, and warning it would intervene if necessary.
“This is the kind of environment where, in the past, we have seen risk rising, and we’re really engaging with banks to ensure they were pre-positioned to implement additional tools should we wish to activate them,” APRA head of system risk Marion Kohler told media on Thursday.
