There is a lot of noise being bantered about regarding property investment of late.
No surprises here given the pending federal election; the likelihood of a close result and the mooted investment property changes by the Labor Party.
I don’t want to join the noise, but when I read or hear gibberish I always like to go back to the numbers.
So just how many Australian households hold an investment property? And who are these cats?
A quick summary
- There are about 9 million dwellings in Australia
- Of which some 1.8 million are held by investors
- So, 20% of Australian households hold an investment property and 80% don’t
More detail
The top investor age groups are:
- 25% are aged between 55 and 64 years
- 24% are aged between 45 and 54 years
- 22% are aged between 35 and 44 years
- And just 15% are aged under 34 years
When it comes to the investment property’s value (in today’s dollars), investor’s think that:
- 35% are worth between $250,000 and $500,000
- 18% are worth less than $250,000
- 18% are worth between $500,000 and $750,000
- And 6% think their investment property is worth over $2 million. Hmmm, tell them there dreaming!
And finally, how many investment properties do investor households hold?
- 73% hold one investment property
- 17% hold two investment properties
- 6% hold three investment properties
- And just 4% hold four or more investment properties
To add the numbers to this spread:
- 1,309,000 investor households hold one investment property
- 302,000 hold two investment properties
- 104,000 hold three investment properties
- And just 85,000 investors hold four or more investment properties
The best way to understand what is going on is to go back to the actual numbers.