Whilst it remains important to accurately monitor activity levels, foreign investment in Australia's property market is nothing but beneficial to our economy. Yet the major banks appear to disagree.

Although there is nothing new about foreign investment in Australia, our banks have tended to use scare tactics to support their clampdown on funding. This is somewhat inappropriate, given the strict regulations in place on the purchase of property by foreign investors.

Indeed, foreign investors can only buy new homes and apartments, or off-the-plan properties and vacant land. The Foreign Investment Review Board - FIRB - is very strict on this.

Further mumblings from the banks suggesting that foreign investment was pushing up our house prices have also been debunked, with new research by Sydney University showing it makes little difference. For example, China is one of our biggest offshore investors, yet Chinese purchases only total around 2% of all property transactions in Australia.

There have been warnings that Australian banks are putting their own business, and our economy, at risk, if they persist with the clampdown, so is there a solution? It seems there is, as private loan lenders in Australia step in to help.

One such private mortgage lender in Australia is Credit Connect Capital, who recently made the decision to finance non-resident loans. The company says the decision was made in response to "significant loan enquiries" from finance brokers, real estate agents, lawyers and accountants, seeking finance to assist their foreign clients in purchasing Australian properties.

A spokesman for Credit Connect Capital said the company would implement strict compliance and lending requirements when assessing non-resident loan applications.
"In the past four weeks alone Credit Connect Capital has been approached to finance approximately 200 purchases of residential properties, predominately located in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane," he said.

"Part of the due diligence process will be confirmation of non-residents' income and identification, together with independent valuations carried out on the property by Credit Connect Capital’s approved panel of valuers."

Credit Connect Capital
64/2 Arbour Avenue
Robina
Queensland
4230
1300 795 507
[email protected]
https://www.ccc.com.au/