"Slow-motion property market crash" coming: ARCO
The ARCO fund manager George Colman is warning of a "slow-motion property market crash" as credit gets harder to secure.
"Broadly speaking, we think that the game has changed in terms of consumer behaviour," he told The Australian Financial Review.
"Bank credit is creating a steep change."
Property borrowers moving from interest-only to the more expensive fixed-rate mortgages was another source of market stress, Colman suggests.
Colman believes the economy now suffers from declining breadth after a years-long narrowing of focus on housing and related sectors.
"We might limp along," he says.
Arco was formed in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis by Mr Colman and Peter Whiting and the Melbourne-based investment management firm had $147 million of assets under management in its long-short Absolute Trust at the end of June.
The fund returned 6.5 per cent over the 2018 financial year.