For On-Site Managers - How Active Are Property Investors At The Start Of 2025?
Updated As Of March 2025 - At Turner Mayes Real Estate we have found over the past 6 months or so that there has been a varied picture when it comes to looking at what property investors are doing. During some months we have very few property investor buyers coming to our “opens” but an influx of investors listing their properties for sale. While at other times, we have few investor sellers, but an increased level of interest from investors wanting to buy Gold Coast properties.
There has certainly been a lot of media recently stating that investors are steadily withdrawing from the property market. A range of reasons are cited, including high interest rates (albeit there was a recent reduction of 0.25%), increased property taxes and tenancy law reforms that generally favour tenants.But while the media is saying that investors are abandoning the property market, several reports have more recently appeared indicating a steady increase in investor buying activity.
So, what are property investors really doing at this time – selling, buying or holding?
Ignore The Media Noise And Examine The Data
Our first bit of advice is to ignore, for the most part, the mass media noise if you really want to understand what property investors are doing. Likewise, we think you need to carefully consider the relevant data.
When looking at the data, a good method of getting to the bottom of which way property investors are heading is by comparing the number of secured housing investment loans reported by the ABS, against the number of new listings that CoreLogic has identified as likely investment properties being marketed for sale.
The CoreLogic data seems to show that likely investor listings have been trending higher since the early part of 2024. However, these numbers remain well below the peak of investor listing activity which occurred around the end of 2021 when selling conditions were extremely strong - back then investors were very active sellers because they wanted to lock-in strong capital gains. And while investment listings have been on the rise over the past months, recent ABS figures show that the number of new investor loan commitments are at an all-time high (a lot of those new investor loan commitments are for properties purchased in QLD which investors seem to view as a high capital growth region over the medium to longer term).
By comparing the available data, and given the recent interest rate reduction, it’s probably reasonable to say that at the moment there are more investors buying QLD properties than there are existing investors selling QLD properties. However, the investor market always remains very sensitive, and we may have now reached an inflection point in QLD where (i) increasing numbers of existing investors do start to sell so they can realise their capital gains; and (ii) more new potential investors remain on the side lines because affordable investment opportunities with strong capital growth potential have become very scarce after the past few years of exceptional capital gains.
Securing Investor Buyers Is Never Easy
So, the good news is that there are still a reasonable number of investor buyers seeking QLD properties. But securing an investor as the buyer for a particular property is never easy especially as most buyer interest will come from owner occupiers.
Because securing an investor buyer is never easy, most real estate agents focus on selling to owner occupiers by getting them emotionally attached to a property (they emphasise the views, the layout of the kitchen, the lovely gardens etc). As the majority of investors have little or no emotional interest in properties, the small group of real estate agents who successfully market and sell to investors must understand how to sell to investors (most agents simply don’t possess those skills).
Peter Turner of Turner Mayes Real Estate has been successfully selling Gold Coast properties to investors for almost 15 years. He understands what motivates them and always ensures that they fully understand why a particular property represents an excellent investment opportunity.