Small lenders step into SMSF market, where ANZ fears to go
More smaller lenders are entering the market for residential property investment loans for self managed super funds.There are now 112 limited recourse home loan products for SMSFs from 19 different lenders listed by RateCity and Canstar, who have been collating this data for less than one year. The SMSF Professionals' Association of Australia estimates that Westpac, Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank hold about 85 per cent of this market.Some smaller lenders who have recently entered the market include Beyond Bank (formerly Community CPS), Banana Coast Credit Union, Hume Bank, RESI Mortgage Corporation and Big Sky Building Society (owned by Australian Unity)."Rates on these products are generally 0.5 to 1 per cent above average retail mortgage rates," said RateCity Product Director Peter Arnold.There are no links to online application interfaces from the RateCity data on SMSF home loans as these are complex legal arrangements."We have a couple of products linking through to a lender's landing page but there are no online processes in this area."This data is good for people who want to compare and collect information but they still need to seek advice to ensure they know what they are getting themselves into," Arnold said.Westpac (along with its St George subsidiary) are leaders in this segment, with eleven fixed rate and variable rate products and a full range of advice and accounting services. Commonwealth Bank has six variations of SMSF residential property investment loans available and NAB has seven.ANZ Bank is not in this market for retail investors and raised concerns about SMSF home loans in its submission to the recent senate economics inquiry into the performance of ASIC.''Gearing clearly increases returns in a positive market but gives rise to greater risks in the event of a market downturn," said the ANZ submission."It may not be an appropriate investment structure for those close to retirement.''