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AMP Bank has announced that it will recommence lending to property investors.
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The bank said in a statement that it will accept investor property loan applications effective 16 November following a temporary withdrawal from the market in response to regulatory growth guidelines.
“The return to investor property lending is in line with AMP Bank’s commitment to return to the market in 2015,” the group said.
“Investor property lending to SMSFs remains on hold in order to meet AMP Bank’s regulatory commitment for the SMSF portfolio.
“The bank is expected to return to SMSF lending later this year”.
The Adviser revealed last month that the bank would continue lending to property investors.
Upon hearing the news, Intuitive Finance director Andrew Mirams told The Adviser that even AMP's greatest advocate would have difficulty providing them with new business after they pulled out of the market "at the drop of a hat".
"How do we trust them? How do we go forward and recommend doing more business with AMP when at the drop of a hat they pulled out of the [investor] market?
"They won't be attracting any of my new business.
"You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out. We're not doing the hokey pokey."
Meanwhile, Shore Financial broker Anthony Roddy said AMP's commitment to re-enter the investor market this year is "good to see".
"We obviously do a lot of business with real estate agents, and one of the major concerns a lot of agents have at the moment is the way that the market has cooled off so quickly due to the reaction," he told The Adviser.
"Obviously, taking those investor loans away has impacted the market so much that now with the predicted supply coming onto the market in the next couple of years for apartments, they're really worried that we're going to see it come off significantly more.
"If AMP are going to come back in with investor loans, hopefully we may see a bit of a reduction in the restrictions on investor lending, because as those apartments come back onto the market, I think you're going to need to have some demand there to actually snuffle them up. Otherwise, I think we're going to see prices come off even further."
APRA statistics show that AMP's investor loan growth was 14.6 per cent in July. This slowed considerably to 10.7 per cent in August after the bank pulled out of the investor space.
