Credit Crunch in USA Affecting Australian Mortgage Markets
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We sometimes forget how widespread the financial markets are these days. While we in the United States are inwardly focused on our own issues with the credit market and trying to find financing for properties, the impact of what has happened in the past week is permeating the global economy.
Australian lenders are feeling the heat as their costs for loans are skyrocketing. Two of the larger lenders in Australia, Ram Home Loans and Bluestone Mortgages, are warning that their earnings will be impacted by higher funding costs.
Rams Home Loans Group said it was forced to pay more to cover its financing due to “unprecedented disruptions” in U.S. financial markets in recent weeks.
The mortgage company said that if market volatility continued, the effect on Rams’ earnings was “likely to be material.”
The chief executive of Bluestone Mortgages, a second Australian lender that is carrying a large number of loans to clients with histories of credit problems, warned of similar difficulties in an interview in an Australian newspaper. Alistair Jeffery, the lender’s chief, told The Australian that he expected to pass higher funding costs on to the consumer. via the International Herald Tribune.

