How many Australians own an investment property?

There is a lot of noise being bantered about regarding how much money it takes to be rich in Australia. there’s often fuss made about all those rich greedy property investors.

So just how many Australian households hold an investment property?

The Australian Taxation Office recently released their latest stats on property investment, so let’s see how rich property investors really are.

Here is a quick summary…

According to Corelogic:

• There are 10.5 million dwellings in Australia with a total value of $7.1 trillion

• There is a total of $1.85 trillion in outstanding mortgage debt.

• 5% of Australian household wealth is held in housing

The Australian taxation office tells us that in the 2017-8 tax year (the latest statistics available)

• There are 2,207,905 property investors in Australia

• This means around 20% of Australian households hold an investment property and 80% don’t.

• The top investor age groups are:

  • 27.83% are aged 60 or more

  • 31.67% are aged between 50 and 59 years

  • 24.65% are aged between 40 and 49 years

  • 14.22% are aged between 30 and 39 years

  • Just 1.63% are younger than 30

Here’s how many properties investors hold

• 1 investment property – 71% (1.57million) – increased by 2.3% over the last year

• 2 investment property – 19% (418,000) – increased by 2.7% over the last year

• 3 investment property – 6% (129,784) – increased by 3 % over the last year

• 4 investment property – 2% (47,469) – increased by 2.2% over the last year

• 5 investment property – 1% (19,861) – increased by 1.8% over the last year

• 6 or more investment property – less than 1% (20,756) – increased by 2% in the last year

Source: How many Australians own an investment property? (propertyupdate.com.au)