Sydney surge
Today's Lending Finance figures from the ABS showed that total lending is trending down from a relatively high level.
You'll have to subscribe for my reports to get the industry level insights as there isn't enough space for them here, but summarily commercial lending to businesses is rather struggling along.
Reflexivity in action
I will just take a quick look at property investor loans here, though, as this is always a popular data series.
The value of investor loans is still trending down in Western Australia, though of course the median value of property has also declined.
Most of the recent resurgence in investor lending since the ALP pledged to quarantine negative gearing deductions to new builds has been seen in Sydney and then Melbourne, in that order.
Meanwhile, investors continue to give Darwin the cold shoulder.
Paradoxically, macroprudential policies implemented at the national level are needed by many of Australia's declining housing sub-markets like a hole in the head.
That's ultimately why investors need to focus on quality - it doesn't necessarily matter all that much what 'the' Aussie housing market is doing, rather that the property or properties you own is doing relatively better than the rest!
This is particularly true now that banks are becoming far less inclined to extend loans to investors for large portfolios, while implementing tighter serviceability criteria.
