Australia sticks with blunt tools to battle housing bubble

Sydney

IN THEIR struggle to cool red-hot property prices in Australia's big cities, the authorities are ratcheting up measures that could dent the whole market but avoiding more targeted steps that have had some success in New Zealand and China.

Australian regulators first focused on reining in investment loans nationally in 2015 by imposing an annual limit of 10 per cent on how much banks could expand their investor loan book.