The biggest cut was to AMP's Investment Basic Variable Loan, paying interest-only (IO), available for borrowers with up to 80% LVR.

AMP's loan was cut by 95 basis points, and now offers an advertised rate of 2.99% p.a. (3.19% p.a. comparison rate*).

For those wanting to pay principal and interest (P&I), the Investor Basic Variable Loan with 60% LVR was cut by 94 basis points to 2.74% p.a. (2.77% p.a. comparison rate*).

Heritage Bank also made quite a few cuts to its investment home loans, with two of the key ones being:

  • Investment Fixed P&I 3 Years: 10 basis point cut to 2.59% p.a. (4.54% p.a. comparison rate*)
  • Home Advantage Investment Fixed IO 3 Years: 20 basis point cut to 2.69% p.a. (3.42% p.a. comparison rate*)

The maximum LVR applicable to both of these loans is 90%.

The sizeable cuts have somewhat bucked the trend seen in the owner-occupier space, with some lenders raising rates in recent weeks, shirking a long run of record-low home loan rates.

On Monday, Suncorp announced it will waive the annual package fee of $375 for customers refinancing their home loan to the Queensland-based lender.

This offer is applicable to mortgage sizes over $250,000, and is available to owner occupiers and investors with LVRs less than 90%. 

Is investment lending rebounding?

Throughout 2020 and very early 2021, first home buyers and owner occupiers were flooding the market, but that changed slightly in February.

Owner-occupied lending fell 1.8% on the month, while investment lending rose 4.5% to be nearly a third higher than a year prior.

So is investment lending on the way back to its glory days?

According to Archistar chief economist Dr Andrew Wilson, maybe not so much.

"Although investor activity bucked the national home lending trend over February, the rate of growth was the lowest for four months," Dr Wilson said.

"And despite recent growth, investor lending remains subdued, accounting for just 20.25% of total home lending and remarkably still below the 20.4% market share for first home buyers.

"The average long-term residential loan market share for investors is 33.3% with the February total still 31.0% lower than the record $10.1 billion approved over April 2015 during similar strong market conditions."

Dr Wilson also pointed to a couple of prevailing headwinds for investors.

"Finance constraints remain a significant barrier to investor activity with that group continuing to pay higher interest rates compared to owner-occupiers with a current differential of 0.58% according to the RBA," he said.

"Ongoing lending restrictions to investors have significant longer-term implications for housing supply and general economic growth.

"Although investor activity is revived dragged along by booming housing markets, underlying levels remain clearly at record lows."

Photo by Abby Savage on Unsplash

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