The figures below are quoted exactly as the source prints them, with the period stated. Nothing here is rounded, combined or derived.
Most investors own one property
Of the 2,335,540 individuals the ATO counted in 2023-24, 1,672,616 held an interest in one rental property. Then 438,906 held two, 135,327 three, 48,690 four, 19,849 five and 20,152 six or more, on the same ATO table. The year before, 2022-23, the total was 2,261,080.
The RBA reads the same data the same way. It finds 70 per cent of investors own a single property and 30 per cent hold multiple properties. That multi-property group holds about half of all investment properties, per the RBA bulletin. For an advisory, that is the whole market in two sentences. Most investors have one property and no plan for the next. The minority with several hold half the stock.
How many are losing money on it?
The ATO splits the 2023-24 count by overall net rent outcome: 1,266,454 individuals recorded a net rent loss and 1,069,086 were net rent neutral or in profit, on its individuals statistics. The dollar totals behind those counts are not printed on that page, so this site does not quote them.
Cost is also the reason many investors give for selling. PIPA's 2026 Annual Investor Sentiment Survey covered 626 investors. It found 18.3% had sold at least one investment property in the year to August. The reasons given included increased holding and compliance costs at 37% and increased land tax or government charges at 30%, per the PIPA findings page.
What investor lending did last quarter
New investor loan commitments for dwellings numbered 52,599 in the June quarter 2026, on the ABS lending indicators. That was down 8.6% on the quarter and up 2.8% on the June quarter 2025, and worth $37.1 billion. The average investor loan was $708,000 nationally, $851,000 in New South Wales and $604,000 in Victoria.
Banks funded $200.5 billion of new loans in the June 2026 quarter. Of that, 35.6% was investment lending, up from 34.1% a year earlier, per APRA's June 2026 property exposure statistics. Investment loans were 31.2% of all residential credit outstanding.
Who the investors are
The RBA bulletin describes a group that is older and better paid than the population as a whole. The median age of housing investors moved from 45 to 51 between 1999/2000 and 2022/23. Nearly 40 per cent of investors come from the top 20 per cent of income earners. The share of investors aged over 60 rose from 12 to 28 per cent over the same period, all on the same bulletin.
Investment properties are 20 per cent of the dwelling stock. That is the base an advisory draws from: a large, ageing, mostly single-property group. National dwelling values fell 3.1% over the three months to August 2026, per Cotality's September summary, and the national gross rental yield reached 3.8%, per its monthly chart pack.
What this means for an advisory buying leads
The investor who enquires is most often one of the 1,672,616 with a single property, or someone about to join them. They are not short of information. They are short of a plan. The enquiry we deliver states their goal, budget range, deposit or equity position, timeframe and location. That is the start of the plan, and the reason the first call is a strategy conversation.
Every figure on this page is refreshed when the ATO, ABS, RBA, APRA, PIPA or Cotality release new data. The date at the foot of the page is the last review.