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Non-residential and residential building approvals fell over the last six months in NSW, says the Urban Taskforce citing Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
“In a worrying sign that the property market is slowing down the latest ABS approval numbers continue a fall from June 2015,” said Urban Taskforce CEO Chris Johnson. 
In the high density apartment market, approvals in December 2015 dropped to 3,060 from a high of 3,338 approvals in June 2015 on trend numbers. 
This could be a settling down to more normal production or point to less confidence in the market through a tightening of bank loans, said Johnson.
“While the state’s performance is well above the 10-year average the continual slow down means the government must be careful with any changes that affect the industry. We are concerned that statements about value capture levies along with a less focussed local government sector due to amalgamations could lead to further drops in production,” he said.
“Even at the June high point NSW was not producing sufficient housing for the increased population particularly when many approvals do not proceed to housing production.” 
According to the NSW Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development website, land value capture or uplift involves governments levying a proportion of the increase in the unimproved capital value of private land due to public sector transport infrastructure investments. 
The various forms of value capture range from property taxes, parking levies and voluntary planning agreements.
The non-residential building approvals — measured by value — have also slowed over the last six months with NSW now behind Victoria and Queensland despite these states being smaller. 
Non-residential building approvals in Victoria were $833,198,000 in December 2015 compared to Queensland at $692,603,000 and NSW at $691,569,000.” 
“While the NSW economy is generally in good shape the role of building production needs to be carefully supported to ensure it remains robust,” said Johnson.
He suggested that the Greater Sydney Commission take a more proactive role with approvals of major projects during the transition process to ensure housing supply continues at a strong level.
<a href="/images/2016/02/04/Screen%20Shot%202016-02-04%20at%2010.21.07%20AM.png" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>
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NSW building approvals slowing down: Urban Taskforce 

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Auswide Bank has raised a number of its variable interest rates for current owner occupiers and business customers, with the lender justifying the move as necessary to protect stakeholder interests. 
The non-major lender, which has assets under management of nearly $2.8 billion, said reference rates for existing owner-occupied mortgages will go up by 10 basis points, increasing the bank’s predominant standard variable rate to 5.43% per annum.
The change comes into effect immediately, according to a report in the <a href="https://www.brokernews.com.au/news/breaking-news/challenger-bank-pushes-up-variable-rates-231096.aspx">Australian Broker</a>.
Owner occupiers paying the standard rate on a $250,000 loan will now have to cough up an additional $15.59 per month, based on a principal and interest home loan paid off over 30 years, says the report.
Variable rates have also increased by 10 basis points for business loans.
These increases have been necessary to protect stakeholder interests, said Auswide managing director Martin Barrett.
<img src="https://www.urban.com.au/images/2017/02/10/AuswideLogo.png" alt="">
“Our operating margin has sat just under 2% for many years and this decision protects that long-held position in a competitive funding environment where a large proportion of our loan funding is sourced from depositors,” he was cited as saying in the report.
Barrett said that although Auswide had adjusted its investment home loan rates in December, it had held off as long as possible on increasing rates for owner occupier and business customers.
Customers with fixed rate home loans, personal lines of credit, and investment home loans will not be affected by these changes.
The discount variable rate offer for new package loans over $150,000 with an LVR of under 90% will not be impacted, nor will customers with the RBA Rate Tracker Home Loan which was launched in October 2016.
 
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Auswide Bank raises variable interest rates for owner occupiers

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Home loan lender ME has launched its new Scroogify tool to capture the growing refinance market.
The bank says the tool will help it maintain strong home loan growth after increasing its lending book 1.6 times the market average in the six months to 31 December 2017.
ME home loan settlements hit $3.2 billion for the six months to 31 December 2017, up 54 percent compared to the previous corresponding period.
Head of Home Loans, Patrick Nolan, said industry refinance levels had been steadily increasing as competition between lenders intensifies and borrowers become increasingly aware of the new deals on offer.
However, a large group of borrowers are still disinclined to refinance due to the perceived difficulties in comparing and because they underestimate the amount they can save, despite the fact the majority are with a major bank and are probably paying too much.
"We built Scroogify to be a new type of calculator that in a few seconds quantifies just how much a borrower would save over the life of their loan, in both time and money, if they switched their existing home loan to ME.
"We think Scroogify will shock borrowers out of apathy into action.”
Nolan said ME will support the tool with a major marketing campaign including TV, radio, online, public relations and social media, running nationally throughout 2017.
It will include a nationwide social media campaign to find ‘Australia’s Biggest Scrooge’.
“We reckon everyone has an inner scrooge just waiting to come out. The marketing campaign is designed to encourage borrowers to embrace their inner scrooge and unleash it on their home loan.
Scroogify is available at <a href="https://www.scroogify.com.au" target="_blank">scroogify.com.au</a>
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ME chases refinancers with anti-apathy Scroogify calculator

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Heritage Bank reported an after-tax profit growth of 9.6 percent for the financial year ended June 30 over the previous year, and improved its loan approvals by 34 percent.
Its after-tax profit was $39.62 million, up 9.6% on the $36.14 million in 2015/16. 
Loan approvals totalled $2.391 billion, up 34.3% on the $1.78 billion. The lender's <a href="https://www.urban.com.au/news/56457-heritage-bank-lends-less-but-profits-up" target="_blank">loan approvals were down slightly</a> in the previous financial year.
“We have been on a deliberate growth trajectory, as we look to build our loan book, retail deposits and assets. That growth will be critical for us in reshaping the business and investing more in our digital capabilities in coming years, both in the front-end and in the back office,” said CEO Peter Lock.
Nearly 50% of its loan approvals came via originations through the bank’s broker channel and Lock added that “we will continue to build our presence outside Queensland.” 
Pre-tax profit growth was solid, up 10.2% to $56.31 million compared to $51.11 million the previous year.  
Lock said after accounting for one-off structural items, including the gain on the sale of Heritage’s Financial Planning business, the adjusted pre-tax profit of $52.77 million was still a 3.3% increase on the previous year. 
Lock said Heritage had maintained its net interest margin at a similar level as the previous year, and had slightly reduced its cost to income ratio. 
Chairman Kerry Betros said Heritage’s mortgage loan arrears greater than 30 days  was0.32% as at June 30.
“Compare that to the latest available Standard and Poor’s Performance Index (SPIN) industry figure of 1.16%, as at May 2017.  We sit at one third of the industry average, which illustrates the continued strength of our loan book and the robustness of our credit practices,” he said. 
Heritage said its capital adequacy ratio at 30 June 2017 was 13.44% and its liquidity ratio was 15.43%, well above regulatory requirements. 
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