Wednesday 13 February 2013

Oz banks - on the edge of the precipe

Or as the Financial Times' Lex Column put it - Australian lenders could, with a downturn in the economy - suffer what it termed an "Oz-pop".  Noting the sector's current strengths, banks unlike property developers have not written down the value of their  loan portfolios collateralised by residential properties (for which Australia is one of the most overvalued markets globally according to the Economist).

....The markets of the world are littered with the victims of housing bubbles  those that bet against them too soon as well as those that did not see them coming. Australia is no different. Developers are writing down land values but the big banks, which rely heavily on homeowners for profits, are still investor darlings...

....[Commonwealth Bank] has the sort of stodgy balance sheet regulators everywhere now praise as the model [vast majority home loans and local]. But if the Aussie housing market stumbles, so will its big lenders and market headway from here looks uncertain at best. Stockland and Mirvac, two large developers, have knocked a combined A$600m off the value of their properties in the past fortnight....(here).

No comments:

Post a Comment