On The Street, It's A Competitive Frenzy
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday July 14, 2007
PETER BROWN, the owner of Penrith's Lawson Street Loan Office, has a problem with the easy credit boom causing heartache in Sydney's mortgage belt. It's threatening to send his pawnbroking business to the wall.
"It makes it harder for the pawnbrokers these days because there is far too many other places they can go to and obtain a loan," he says.Penrith has the highest proportion of loan-related bankruptcies among the 45 council areas in greater Sydney. But Brown need not worry. He says he has nine investment properties. However, his shop's guitars, a Harley-Davidson trike and Norman Lindsay prints speak to the heartache walking through his door. Plenty of easy credit is just around the corner. In High Street there is a pay-day advance business Cash Stop; in Station Street is Moneyplus ("Instant cash within minutes"), Cash Converters and Penrith Shop 'N' Hock. And in Westpac's Henry Street branch the window-poster says: "Need a home loan? Open Saturdays, come in and see Denis." Down Henry Street is one of the biggest players in personal finance, GE Money.An unpublished Consumer Credit Legal Centre study analysed 2500 callers facing financial stress due to credit card problems. It found an average credit card debt for each caller of $14,000, one caller with a debt of $200,000 and 47 with debts of more than $80,000. More than 800 had two or more cards.A counsellor at Wesley Financial Counselling Services in Kingswood, near Penrith, Barrie Stretton, says: "You look at the information that they give us, there's no way any reputable organisation would have given them any money," he says.Another counsellor at the centre, Joanna Keating, says it it not just about cards. The more predatory lenders "will foreclose very quickly," she says. "Miss just a couple of repayments and they sell your house."
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald
