Australian house prices rose the most in almost seven years in March as the country’s housing boom accelerated.

Australia’s central bank Governor Philip Lowe rebuked the nation’s banks over lax lending practices and warned regulators are prepared to consider further prudential measures to steps announced last week.

Melbourne close behind with a spike of 17.5% but ratings agency warns that a rising number of homeowners have fallen behind with payments

Philip Lowe says too many interest-only loans being issued to people with the ‘skinniest of buffers’ and blames tax policies, such as negative gearing

Ed Husic says dysfunctional arrangement prevents shareholders from taking earlier action against banks doing the wrong thing

ASIC has joined APRA in cracking down on property investment lending. But this is a repeat of 2014, and it didn’t work back then, Glenn Dyer and Bernard Keane write.