00:00So with property prices and investor loans hitting their highest levels ever, Australia's
00:06banking regulator APRA is introducing new restrictions on high risk lending. So from
00:12February the 1st, 20% of new mortgages issued by banks are allowed to have debt to income
00:16ratios of more than six times. Now let's simplify that a bit. Let's say your household
00:21earns $100,000 a year and you want to borrow more than $600,000 as either an investor or
00:27owner occupier. Only a fifth of the new loans issued by your bank are allowed to exceed
00:32that threshold. As for how effective that'll be, one prominent banking analyst says it's
00:37like banning blokes who are eight feet tall from going into restaurants. A lot of those
00:41around as you know. Now going back in time to 2014, APRA introduced an investor mortgage
00:47limit which allowed banks to grow their number of investor loans by 10% each year and house
00:53prices continued to rise. In 2017, it imposed a new rule saying only 30% of new residential
01:00loans could be interest only. Now that led to house prices falling quite a bit before APRA
01:05decided to wind back those restrictions. Then COVID happened, interest rates were cut to zero
01:10and house prices have never been higher. And in case you're wondering, the average Australian
01:15household's debt levels are about 180% greater than their incomes, which is far higher than most
01:21other countries. Meanwhile, the Australian share market has finished trading pretty much
01:25flat as tech related stocks did well, though that was offset by big falls in stocks like
01:30QBE and Harvey Norman. Now overseas markets did a lot better as their tech and AI stocks continued
01:36to rebound. Gold, oil and iron ore prices were a little bit higher. And the Aussie dollar is
01:41buying just under 65 and a half US cents. And that's finance.
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