The head of Australia’s largest brick manufacturer is warning a squeeze on lending to investors is triggering a slowdown in housing construction activity, forcing building jobs to be pushed back or cancelled.

Lindsay Partridge, the chief executive of building materials group Brickworks, said tighter bank lending controls had slashed personal borrowing capacity and were beginning to take a toll on the building market.

Brickworks CEO Lindsay Partridge. Credit:James Alcock

Brickworks’ east coast order book remained strong, but its sales had become “patchy”, Mr Partridge warned.

“One thing that everyone is becoming aware of is we have a credit squeeze that has emerged in the past couple of months through the banks who are pro-first-home-owners and negative on investors and interest-only loans,” he said.