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Australians are keen property investors and look far and wide.
PROPERTY price growth may have slowed but new figures reveal it is still the biggest asset class in Australia, worth about $6.5 trillion - up from $6 trillion in August last year.
And about a third of those properties are owned by investors, according to new analysis by CoreLogic.
Darwin has the highest proportion of investment properties in Australia according to the figures.
Almost 43 per cent of dwellings in Darwin are owned by investors.
The Gold Coast also has a high percentage of investor owned properties, 32.8 per cent, followed by Melbourne, 32.2 per cent, Sydney, 28.9 per cent and Brisbane 28.6 per cent.
Darwin has the highest percentage of investment properties in Australia.Source:News Corp Australia
The figures reveal Australians are keen property investors but according to CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless the majority only own one investment property.
And they aren’t exactly splashing on million dollar mansions with the majority of investment properties worth between $300,000 and $500,000.
“Investment in Australian dwellings is generally skewed towards the lower value segments of the market,’’ the report said.
Tim Lawless, of CoreLogic, says the majority of investors only own one property.Source:News Corp Australia
While investors claimed billions in losses on investment properties Mr Lawless said the government still made more money through capital gains tax than it paid out.
The report revealed in the 2013/14 financial year, residential investors claimed $3.719 billion in losses associated with investment properties.
Mr Lawless said this was down on previous years. He said this in part was driven by low interest rates.
“As interest costs reduce, the ability to claim a rental loss reduces because the interest deduction is overwhelmingly the single largest deduction available,’’ the report said.
“With interest rates moving even lower since June 2014, we would expect that net rental losses will reduce even further over the coming years, but are likely to increase when interest rates rise.’’
Of those investors who claimed a loss the average rate was $8722 while of those who claimed a net rental profit the average was $9332.
Investors lost $3.4 billion when selling their properties in 2015 calender year but more showed a profit to the tune of a total $51.2 billion.
“Highlighting considerably more capital gains tax revenue was collected by the Government than deducted,’’ Mr Lawless said.