Westpac returns investor LVR to 90%.

Westpac lowers deposit hurdle for property investors | smh.com.au

 

Westpac lowers deposit hurdle for property investors | smh.com.au

Wonder if the others will follow suit? Interesting announcement to make, particularly since it is pre-election still.

 

And the finance world is slowly but surely getting back to normal. Didn't even take that long. Gotta love it.

 

NAB never changed. They've always been going to 90% LVR for investment purposes.

 

The good times are back!

 

NAB never went down to 80% LVR

Agree that this is a good sign for westpac group.

Cheers

Jamie

 

I bet others will follow.
I think they are trying to balance after they cracked down on foriegn investors...

 

if you borrow 90% do you still need to pay LMI? or does the LMI threshold also become 90%

 

LMI premium would still be payable at 80% and up. That would be the insurers decision to make and not the lenders i would assume.

 

LMI policy generally remains unchanged when specific lenders increase or decrease their maximum LVR policy. Essentially unrelated.

 

This reverses the 'deposits' side of the equation from Westpac - something that plenty of lenders barely adjusted (or did so marginally). In terms of impact on the market - these changes would have had a really minor impact, as there were still major competitors who were in this space (ANZ, CBA and NAB).

The real game changer for investors was the changes to serviceability - we haven't seen much of a wind back here (very very marginal). In fact, there was been consistent and concerted effort from the regulators/banks to reinforce the prudent standards publically. Its very clear that much of these changes will continue for the foreseeable future.

 

WBC servicing calc is so junk that barely any investors will be able to afford to use WBC anyways, regardless of LVR.

Maybe for their first IP but that's about it.

 

do their subsidiaries use the same cal or they have their own?

 

Have their own.

 

No, the St George group (StG, BoM, BoA) are significantly better in almost all respects. Servicing is better, products tend to be more cost effective.

The Westpac 'Rocket loan' has always been one of the best products on the market in terms of features, but it's rare that anyone would actually need those features in a manner that makes the rest of it worthwhile.

 

each would have their own calc and different set of policies from their main company.

 

BOM/STG are in my opinion the most generous lender for servicing their own investment debt.

The servicing between WBC and BOM/STG is substantially different due to the fact that WBC do not use negative gearing and the way STG apply negative gearing is very generous compared to other lenders.

My gut feel is that WBC group will look at doing something with Interest Only loans ie, load up interest only loans for existing customers like NAB. When I think of my clients with STG/BOM, the majority of them have locked in 15 year interest only for their owner occupied and investment loans.

Surely the fact they have the largest investment book coupled with the fact they use to provide 15 year interest only without amortising the loan term for serviceability their book would be full of interest only loans.

 

Sounds like they might be trying to be generous !-No LMI then ??!!!