Property investors – all smiles

Despite recent concern over interest rates, property investors are feeling confident in their investment strategies, according to a national survey by Mortgage Choice.

Mortgage Choice ran a national survey to probe the minds of property investors and found most to be positive, knowledgeable and keen to add to their portfolio. It also found a majority had not taken advantage of the ‘rental squeeze’ to glean more money from tenants.

The survey was completed by 1,000 respondents across Australia who own one or more investment properties and purchased it in the past two years. Just over half (53 per cent) owned one investment property, 43 per cent owned between two and five, 3 per cent owned between six and 10 and just over 2 per cent owned 11 or more.

National manager of corporate affairs Warren O’Rourke said it was surprising to uncover such a high number of satisfied investors, with over half of all respondents planning to grow their property cache in the next two years.

“When you consider so many owned only one investment property it was encouraging to find so many feeling positive and confident in their strategies,” he said.

“Most managed to buy the type of property they wanted, in the area they wanted and have found their pre-purchase expectations being met. This is great news.”

The survey also found respondents believed their knowledge of the investment property market had improved since their first purchase, with 11 per cent considering themselves ‘very knowledgeable’ prior to buying and 36 per cent considering themselves very knowledgeable since buying it.

The key motivator driving their investments was the desire for the income it provides: ‘setting myself up financially for the future’ (46 per cent), ‘capital gain’ (21 per cent) and ‘negative gearing’ (17 per cent). The survey found 6 per cent of respondents wanted ‘to get their foot in the property market door’ and 5 per cent said they wanted to ‘build a property portfolio to hand onto beneficiaries’.