Banks' Property Exposures Rise Sharply: APRA

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's Quarterly ADI Property Exposures for the March 2015 quarter show a strong increase in bank lending for property.

The report, shows that ADIs’ commercial property exposures were $234.2 billion, an increase of $15.1 billion, or 6.9 per cent, over the year.

Commercial property exposures within Australia were $193.3 billion, equivalent to 82.5 per cent of all commercial property exposures.

ADIs’ total domestic housing loans were $1.3 trillion, an increase of $107.1 billion, or 9.0 per cent, over the year. There were 5.3 million housing loans outstanding with an average balance of $243,000.

ADIs with greater than $1 billion of residential term loans approved $82.3 billion of new loans, an increase of $8.5 billion, or 11.5 per cent, over the year. Of these new loan approvals, $51.9 billion, or 63 per cent, were owner-occupied loans and $30.4 billion, or 37 per cent, were investment loans.

The APRA report contains information on ADIs’ commercial property exposures, residential property exposures and new housing loan approvals. Detailed statistics on residential property exposures and new housing loan approvals are included for ADIs with greater than $1 billion in housing loans.