Confidence in the property sector has defied official moves to restrain lending to investors.
A survey of businesses by ANZ and the Property Council shows confidence has been little changed at a high level over the past 12 months.
That's despite a fall in the expected availability of finance among the 1,700 survey respondents.
At the end of 2014, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority issued guidelines designed to curb over-exuberant lending to residential property investors, while the government also made moves to enforce rules governing foreign investors in housing.
The ANZ and Property Council survey showed the share of residential property sales to foreign investors had shrunk slightly to 22 per cent.
The share of commercial property snapped up by buyers from abroad rose one percentage point to 20 per cent.
The positive mood reported by the survey echoed the results of the recently released National Australia Bank quarterly residential property survey, which showed sentiment in the industry picked up in the first quarter of 2016 after falling for three quarters in a row.
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