Surprise workers who own the most rental homes

Teachers, nurses, truckies and cops have become some of the nation’s most prolific property investors and they’re increasingly investing to help their kids buy homes in the future.

Australian Taxation Office data has uncovered the most common professions of the country’s landlords, revealing they are rarely wealthy and are more often working jobs with average pay.

The same professionals tended to be negatively geared and had the most to lose if the tax concessions were scrapped – a move treasury officials were recently reported to be exploring.

The ATO data showed nearly 56,000 of the country’s landlords were nurses and they owned more investment properties than accountants.

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Nurses with investments reported earnings anywhere from $45,000-$120,000 a year.

Property investors who worked as primary and high school teachers outnumbered IT boss investors – and combined were the nation’s second most prolific investors. Their salaries were similar to nurses.

Other surprises were sparkies topping real estate agents, truckies investing more frequently than solicitors and cops owning more investments than general medical practitioners.

It comes as Green’s housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather this week reissued pleas for Labor to reconsider the paring back the tax benefits, in exchange for the safe passage of the government’s shared-equity Help To Buy Bill, which remains blocked in the Senate.

“Millions are suffering through this devastating housing crisis and all the Greens are suggesting is Labor stop giving billions of dollars to wealthy property investors and instead start making meaningful change to the lives of those doing it tough,” he said.

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Property Investors Council of Australia director Ben Kingsley said investors were rarely as cashed up as often suggested in public discourse.

“It’s everyday aspiring Australians buying,” he said. “Or they are accidental investors, who upgrade and can hold onto their first apartment. Or they inherit.”

The ATO revealed about 70 per cent of the nearly 780,000 people in NSW who had real estate investments owned just one property.

About 20 per cent of NSW investors owned two properties and 6.5 per cent had three. About one per cent owned six or more homes.

Roughly half the truck drivers, nurses, cops, teachers and childcare workers who owned investment properties were negatively geared over the 2021/22 tax year – the most recent with available claims data.

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This meant they made a loss on the properties that they could offset against their tax.

Nurses, teachers, truckies and other lower-wage workers also tended to buy more affordable rental homes and were more sensitive to higher interest rates, Mr Kingsley said.

Those who were struggling with higher repayments were more likely to raise rents – or, in some cases, sell, he said.

“If you take away, say, the negative gearing benefit, higher income earners will still be able to invest,” Mr Kingsley said. “But the nurses and teachers will not be able to buy in.”

Figures from the ABS showed investment activity has been rising over the past year, with the number of new loans to investors increasing by about 34 per cent over the past year.

Little Real Estate director James Kirkland said part of this surge was coming from Sydney renters who couldn’t afford to buy a residence and were rentvesting instead – often in markets like Brisbane.

“These are people who are trying to use investing as a way to eventually help them buy a home of their own because they can’t afford a primary place of residence where they live,” he said.

Two Red Shoes broker Rebecca Jarrett Dalton said there was also a wave of new investors buying to help their children one day gain a path to homeownership.

“The hope with an investment is often that the equity they get from the property over time will be able to one day go into a deposit for their children,” Ms Jarrett Dalton said.

“People have seen how difficult it has been for them to buy a home and they think, ‘if this is how hard it is now, what’s it going to be like for my kids?’”

Mr Jarrett Dalton added that the language people were using when describing their investment goals was changing.

“Investing used to be mostly about setting yourself up for retirement. That’s still one of the main reasons people invest, but it’s becoming less about wealth and more about helping others,” she said.

Sydney swimming coach Nicole Elliott, 51, with partner Isileli, recently purchased an investment property in Bendigo and said they did it to secure their future – and for their kids.

“We want to make sure they are a lot more comfortable than we were starting a family,” Ms Elliott said. “They don’t have to wait for us to pass to get an inheritance. We can be in a position to help them if we need to.”

DAY JOBS OF MOST PROLIFIC INVESTORS

(with no. professionals who own properties)

General manager 66,559

Teachers 64,529

CEO/managing director 60,800

Registered nurse 55,519

Accountant 49,203

Office administrator 41,144

Advertising and sales manager 40,686

Admin assistant 40,509

Project administrator 25,296

Software and applications programmer 25,024

IT manager 22,379

Electrician 21,397

Sales rep 19,114

Construction manager 18,725

Real estate sales agent 17,587

Finance manager 17,431

Sales assistant-general 17,272

Truck driver 15,738

Solicitor 15,475

Accounting clerk 15,416

Police 15,412

Call centre/customer service manager 15,040

Civil engineer 14,318

Bank teller/officer 14,316

Aged/disabled carer 14,004

Retail manager 13,969

Management and organisation analyst 13,431

Source: Australian Taxation Office