According to the 1997 survey, wage and salary earners comprised 64.9% of all rental investors, with almost 63% between 35 & 54 years of age. Approx. 18% of all investors had their own business or partnership as their main source of income. In 1993 over 70% of rental property investors were Australian-born, with the next highest group ( 7%) coming from the U.K. and Ireland. However the incidence of ownership was highest among Italian born ( 14% of OZ residents born in Italy owned rental property ) followed by those born in Greece ( 12%), Malaysia ( 10%), and Hong Kong ( 9%). This distribution was not updated in the latest survey. The 1990 NSW Dep. of Housing study of that state's landlords and rental properties had for the most part similar results. It showed that owners of a single property made up 83% of all landlords and held 54% of the total private rental housing stock. Almost 70% of individual landlord investors belonged to three main occupations : professionals, business, financial services and property management & development. In 2003 more than 400 000 people aged between 40-54 owned an investment property - a rise of almost 50% over two years according to a survey undertaken by Nielsen Media Research Panorama and equivalent to almost 1/3 of all investors in the residential property market. A three group categorization of private investors was found by Core Consultants: - small-scale landlords (1-5 properties) - medium-scale landlords (6-20 properties) - large-scale landlords (21 or more properties) From the 1990 - 2000 evidence has emerged that the profile of dwelling purchasers has changed - with investors representing as increasing proportion of buyers in the medium / high density market. In Sydney and Perth CBD it's estimated that at least 40% of purchasers are investors and up to 70% of some of Brisbane and Melbourne's recent CBD developments were bought by investors. IN contrast with the mid-1990 when overseas Asian investors were said to have been major players in the Sydney CBD unit market-in 2003-04 only an estimated 5% of sales went to Asian investors. Evidence suggests that an increasing amount of foreign sales are going to Australian expatriates........... About 85% of investors own their own home as compared to 68% of the general population. The 15% of investors who rented but owned a residential property tended to be younger than those investors owning their own home. About 44.5% of home lending by value ( net of refinancing of loan ) was borrowed by investors from April 2003-March 2004 - as compared to the historical average of 25%..... In 2003 in Australia were over 1,300,000 private landlords [ approx. 9% of the adult population and 12% of taxpayers !!! ], providing private rental accommodation for 1,520,000 Australian households ( over 3,900,000 Australians ) with 60,000 becoming first-time rental property owners in 2002-03. ON the per capita basis, Australia now has twice as many landlords among its taxpayers as North America and six times as many as in United Kingdom.
This doesn't surprise me as Australia offers better taxation benefits than the UK and we also have a bigger love affair with property. It's built into our psyche almost from the time we're born that owning your own piece of Australia is the way to go. I also think that property is still, even in this slump of a market we seem to be experiencing, viewed as rock solid and a more stable investment by the majority of Australian investors.
" This doesn't surprise me as Australia offers better taxation benefits than the UK and we also have a bigger love affair with property." Jacque... I must be honest....This information / statistic really surprised me... Population of U.K is close to 60 million = 3 times more than Australia. If taxation benefits have something to do with it, this might explain the above ratio. Comparison between N.America's real estate investors versus Australia's is even more bizzare... Population of N. America ( USA 296 mil + Canada 32 mil ) is close to 328 million = 16.4 times more than Australia... and still in Australia there are two times more real estate investors than in N. America.... This in my opinion is just UNREAL ...
With respect to the UK at least it's no surprise. There are basically two policy approaches to public housing for those who can't afford to buy. a) the government provides the majority of housing - This is what the UK did and there are horrible "estates" as result b) private investors provide the majority of housing - this is the Australian approach. (Yes I know we have housing commission areas e.g. bonnyrigg, inala etc too, but not on the same scale). I think from a social perspective we're far better off with the Australian approach. My 2.2 cents worth. N.