Heightened competition among home lenders has prompted the banking regulator to issue a reminder of what constitutes prudent lending, but its suggestion that loans being generated by mortgage brokers should…
An increasing number of consumers choose a broker over going direct to a bank for their home loan.
Dan Peled/AAP
Over 40% of mortgages in Australia are sold by mortgage brokers, not by their manufacturers - an issue that has the CEO of Australia’s fifth largest bank, Suncorp, arguing the sector is skewed towards…
Credit makes us and credit breaks us – ancient Roman debtors cut into pieces by their angry creditors under the law of the Twelve Tables knew it, as does ASIC, tasked with regulating the many mortgage…
Lessons to learn for housing policy.
Chris Carlson/AP
The US has wasted its “sub-prime” mortgage crisis. The story of how and why this has happened is of interest not only for its own sake, but for the broader themes it reveals. I am a theoretically trained…
Coles is believed to have applied for an Authorised Deposit-taking Institution licence, which would allow it to take deposits.
AAP
The news that Coles may be seeking a banking licence would, if confirmed, put the supermarket group and its parent company Wesfarmers in direct competition with Australia’s major banks. It would allow…
The proportion of renters is now roughly equal to the numbers of outright home owners.
Image from www.shutterstock.com
For all our talk about housing affordability, few people want house prices to drop. That’s because most Australians are home owners, and much of our wealth is stored in housing. But recent figures released…
Even on sale, payday loans are getting us into more financial trouble.
PA
Britain is currently experiencing its longest and deepest economic slump in a century. But through new research we’re only just beginning to realise quite how dramatic the impact of this recession has…
Calculating a household’s residual income is a more accurate measure of housing stress.
Image from www.shutterstock.com
Property pundits are hoping the Reserve Bank of Australia’s latest cut to interest rates will help stoke the country’s flat property sector into life. But Australia’s housing remains highly over-valued…
A former mortgage broker - who is now facing fraud charges - has blown the whistle on predatory lending practices in Australia’s financial services industry.
Image from www.shutterstock.com
The level of sub-prime mortgages in Australia may be far in advance of what was previously assumed and provided for by banks. The story was broken on the ABC, and covered elsewhere. The revelations centred…
Welcome to Safe as Houses, a series delving into a topic close to the heart of many Australians – property. This is not a series on where the market might be heading. Instead we aim to explore how we view…