A brief history of private lending

Private lending started as solicitor’s trust account lending. Due to solicitors making a dog’s breakfast of the industry we saw the Managed Investments Act introduced in 1997 with private lending coming under the supervision of the ASIC. The solicitors who became professional about lending and a crop of new operators continued until GFC when, for a variety of mostly self-inflicted reasons, the majority got wiped out.

A small number of private lending veterans remain. As expected there is now a new crop of private lenders entering the market. Time will tell as to how many will succeed. If history is a guide then not many will survive a full cycle of the property market. Most will only last a short period of time.