Australian Property News

Invasion of the property investors

Posted on Tuesday, February 02 2010 at 5:24 PM

Now that the First Home Owners Boost has ended, property investors are "invading the residential real estate market", according to an Australian mortgage broker group.

Loan Market Group has reported that its enquiries from investors have doubled over the past three months and investors now make 40 per cent of all home loan enquiries compared to around 20 per cent in September last year.

"During the last three or four months there's been a dramatic shift in the home loan market as investors replace retreating first homebuyers," says Loan Market Group chief executive officer Dean Rushton.

"They're seeing opportunities to buy an investment property and are undeterred by the three recent increases in official interest rates and the prospect of rates continuing to head up from the generational lows they reached last year.

"In many Australian cities and regional centres there is a real shortage of rental properties and there are many people considering buying an investment property to take advantage of this situation."