Banks signalling end of ultra-cheap housing finance

Some of Australia’s biggest banks are continuing to hike fixed interest rates, suggesting the era of historically-cheap housing finance could be coming to an end.

Westpac was the latest to lift the interest rates on its fixed rate loans, increasing its two, three, four and five-year fixed rate loans by 0.1 per cent this week.

Those hikes followed the Commonwealth Bank of Australia raising its two, three and four-year fixed rates by 0.1 per cent…