First home buyers are being squeezed out by six of Australia’s nine major banks, as they move to tighten the amount of money they lend to first home buyers, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
According to the reports, Deutsche Bank adopted a “mystery shopper approach” and called each of the major banks to find out about their mortgage offerings.
Its banking researchers claimed they were a first home buyer with an annual income of $70,000 with a full time job, no children and a good credit history. They found that the biggest cut came from St George, which lowered its maximum lending by $55,000 to $400,000; Westpac removed $33,000 of its $479,000 total, while ANZ dropped its lending limit by $46,000 to $439,000. Bankwest imposed similar cuts, droppings its maximum lending limit by $28,000 to $442,000, while Bendigo dropped its limit by $10,000 to $420,000. NAB also dropped its lending limit from $310,000 to $290,000 in April.
The only banks not to impose cuts were Commonwealth Bank and Suncorp who kept their limits at $420,000 and $450,000 respectively; while Bank of Queensland actually raised its maximum lending limit by $7,000 to $425,000.
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