CBA lifts its mortgage book $46 billion in FY26 as investor applications fall 28% since 12 May

This article is general information only and does not constitute financial or tax advice. Consult a qualified tax professional for advice specific to your situation.

This article is general information only. It does not consider your personal circumstances and is not financial, credit or tax advice. Speak to a licensed mortgage broker, buyer's agent or registered tax agent before acting on any of the figures below.

What CBA actually reported yesterday

Commonwealth Bank published its FY26 full-year results at 09:30 on Wednesday 12 August 2026, the day after the RBA left the cash rate at 4.35% for the fourth consecutive meeting. The headline print for shareholders was a record cash net profit after tax of $10.98 billion, up roughly 7% on FY25's $10.25 billion. Statutory NPAT came in at $10.911 billion. The board lifted the final dividend by 5% to $2.70 per share fully franked, bringing the full-year distribution to $5.05, twenty cents higher than the FY25 total of $4.85. Payout ratio is about 77% of cash earnings.

Net interest margin was 2.05%, down 3 basis points on the headline. Underlying margin was broadly stable once liquids and repos are stripped out. Deposit switching and home loan competition remained the two structural drags, offset by the replicating portfolio and business mix.

The number that matters for landlords, and the one every broking desk in the country was reading yesterday, sits inside the mortgage line. The book. The applications. The buffers.

$680 billion of mortgages across 1.9 million accounts

CBA's total mortgage balances, including Bankwest, closed FY26 at $680 billion across 1.9 million accounts, up from $659 billion at December 2025 and $634 billion at June 2025. Twelve months of book growth totals about $46 billion, which for a market with softening demand is still a large number.

New settlement flow in FY26 was $95 billion, up from $85 billion in FY25. Average new loan size rose to $503,000 from $490,000. Read those two lines together: settlement volume is up but application flow is falling. The book is being fed by fewer, larger loans. That is exactly what a housing market with rising median prices and softer demand at the marginal end looks like.

CBA's own line was that business lending grew at 1.3 times system in FY26 and now contributes 41% of group profit. Home lending only matched system growth. Twelve months ago the housing engine was still doing the heavy earnings lifting. In FY26 it is business lending. Landlords should read that as a signal of where the bank's operational focus is going in FY27, not as an abandonment of the home loan book.

The 28% investor collapse

The headline application number was disclosed by CEO Matt Comyn at the results press conference. Home loan applications across the CBA group are:

• Down 17% year on year on the June 2026 print.
• Down 15% since the 12 May 2026 federal budget in aggregate.
• Down 28% for investor applications since 12 May.
• Down 9% for owner-occupier applications since 12 May.

Comyn's line was that the decline has 'since stabilised'. It has not reversed. The bank is describing a step-change in application flow that landed within days of the 12 May 2026 negative gearing and CGT overhaul and has held at the new level through June and July.

For context, the investor share of new home lending was already at record highs in the March 2026 APRA print, at about 41%. The 28% collapse on the CBA book is not investors leaving a small share of the market. It is investors leaving a market where they had been outrunning owner-occupiers on ticket count.

The economics are straightforward. The May budget kept full negative gearing for the existing stock a landlord already owns but progressively tightens deductions for new purchases of established stock from 1 July 2027. A landlord considering a marginal established-stock purchase in July 2026 is now buying into a phased-in reduction of their after-tax return. The math on that purchase does not clear. So the application does not get made.

Arrears at 0.73% and the buffer that is moving first

Home loan 90+ day arrears on the CBA book sit at 0.73% at June 2026. That is up on the FY25 trough but still low by long-run standards. Group troublesome and non-performing exposures were 0.94% at June 2026, up from 0.89% at December 2025. Personal loan 90+ day arrears are running at 1.72%, the segment where cost-of-living pressure shows first because personal loan repayments cannot be offset with a redraw manoeuvre.

The pre-arrears indicator is the buffer. Household offset and redraw buffers on the CBA book fell about $7 billion in the six months to 30 June 2026. That is real cash cushions being drawn down. It does not create arrears next month, but it removes the shock absorber that has kept the arrears line low through the whole 2022 to 2026 rate cycle.

The read for a landlord holding a tenanted investor property in FY27:

1. Your tenant's household is very likely running with a thinner cash buffer at 30 June 2026 than they were at 31 December 2025. Late rent, hardship requests, and bond claims on exit are all more likely at the margin, particularly in outer metro locations where household leverage on mortgages is highest.
2. Your own loan sits on a book where the lender has just reported 90+ day arrears grinding higher and buffers grinding lower. Hardship applications from investor borrowers get read against that backdrop. The window for a proactive interest-only extension or a rate re-negotiation is now, not once your own buffer is halved.
3. The lender's credit appetite for new investor lending has softened at the volume level even as headline serviceability tests have not moved. Refinancing shops through Q4 2026 should be broker-led, not proprietary-led. See the channel mix below.

Broker share hits 49% and the refinance calculus

The broker channel share of new CBA home loans rose to 49% in FY26 from 46% a year earlier. Proprietary share fell to 51% from 54%. That is a three-percentage-point swing in twelve months, on falling absolute volume, which means the broker share of a shrinking pie is growing faster than the raw number implies.

Investor loans have historically been over-indexed in the broker channel because investor borrowers shop harder on rate and structure. If application flow is thinning most at the investor end, the broker channel is where the residual investor business is being written and re-priced.

For a landlord with an interest-only loan rolling to principal-and-interest in Q4 2026, or a fixed rate maturing between now and December, the practical guidance is:

• Assume the proprietary retention desk will match, not beat, the discount broker offer on a like-for-like refi. Get the broker number first.
• Test the DTI on the current rack rate, not on a discounted teaser. The APRA 3% serviceability buffer still holds and a modelled 7.35% test on a 4.35% cash rate is what most investor loans are being serviced against.
• Pull the offset balance forward in the model. If the CBA book average buffer is falling, expect the retention desk to price to a lower assumed buffer on your file too.

What the RBA hold at 4.35% actually does for CBA and for you

The RBA held the cash rate at 4.35% on 11 August 2026, one day before CBA reported. The Board's decision statement flagged that inflation is 'coming down but not quickly enough' and that further tightening is not required for the current cycle. The June quarter CPI print of 3.6% trimmed mean was the immediate anchor for the hold.

For CBA, the hold at 4.35% means:

• The NIM at 2.05% is not about to get squeezed by further hike-driven deposit switching. The margin is a defensive line.
• The application slowdown does not reverse without a cut, which is not in the CBA house view before Q2 2027 on current guidance.
• The arrears line will continue to grind higher through the second half of 2026 as the full pass-through of the May hike works into borrower cash flow. It does not accelerate. It grinds.

For a landlord, the hold means the interest-rate side of the P&L is now essentially fixed at the FY26 exit rate. Every meaningful move for the next six months is on the rent side, the vacancy side, or the operating-cost side of the ledger. Fixing tax-time positioning, tightening arrears management, and closing the gap between market rent and actual rent are the three levers that still move.

The bottom line for a landlord reading CBA's book

Australia's biggest home lender has just told the market three things at once. The overall system is still growing. Investors are stepping out of the marginal new-purchase decision at a rate roughly three times the owner-occupier rate. Borrower cash buffers are draining even while arrears remain low.

The read for a landlord planning the next twelve months of decisions is:

• The investor buyer pool for your established-stock sale is roughly a quarter thinner at CBA than it was in April 2026. Assume the same at the other majors, because Westpac's June forecast for a 14.9% peak-to-trough house price fall implies a similar demand read on their book.
• Refinancing conditions favour brokers over proprietary channels through Q4 2026. Book the broker meeting.
• Tenant serviceability is degrading at the buffer level before it hits the arrears level. Move on the arrears-management side of your management framework now.

The 12 May 2026 negative gearing overhaul is doing what Treasury said it would do. It is thinning the investor bid on established stock. CBA has just put a hard number on the thinning: 28% in three months. That is not a rounding issue for the buyer pool. It is a structural repricing of the marginal established-stock deal, and it will not unwind while the 1 July 2027 phase-in remains on the statute books.

Run the numbers on your own book

If you are holding a tenanted investor property through the second half of 2026, the Propkt mortgage calculator will let you model the actual interest cost at a 4.35% cash rate plus your lender's standard variable margin, then stress-test the position at a hypothetical rate cut in Q2 2027. Pair that with the Propkt expense tracker to reconcile every deductible cost against your rent roll before the 2025-26 rental schedule goes to your registered tax agent, and the Propkt rent management workflow to flag the tenants whose payment cadence is drifting before the arrears line does.

FY26 was the year the investor mortgage machine slowed. FY27 is where the landlords who read the numbers early get their edge.