As investors purchase more new dwellings than owner-occupiers, they might also exacerbate the housing construction cycle, making it prone to periods of oversupply and having a knock on effect to developers. Data from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) provide some information on housing investors.
While not particularly timely, these data show that the share of taxpayers who are property investors has increased steadily over the past few years. In 2014/15, around 11 per cent of the adult population, or just over 2 million people, had at least one investment property and around 80 per cent of those were geared (Graph 10).