Today we commence a short series on the results from our latest household surveys, as we examine the drivers of property demand by household segment.
These results, from our 52,000 sample to September 2017 reveals that a significant rotation is underway, with first time buyers seeking to buy, supported by recent enhanced first home owner grants, while property investors are now significantly less likely to transact. We will examine the underlying drivers, initially across the segments, and then later in more detail within a segment.
The segmentation we use is based on the master property definitions as described in our segmentation cookbook. It is essential to look across the segments, as cohorts have significantly different imperatives, which at an aggregate level are lost.
We start with an indication of which segments are most likely to transact over the next year (either buying or selling property). We can trace the trends since 2013, as displayed below, and until recently both portfolio investors (holding multiple properties for investment purposes) or solo investors (holding one or two properties) led the field. But we are now seeing a marked slow down in investors intending to transact. For example, in 2015, 77% of portfolio investors were intending to transact, today this is down to 57%, and the trend in down. Solo investors are down from a high of 49% to 31%, and again is trending lower. Later we will examine the drivers behind these trends.
In contrast, the proportion of Down Traders is 49%, has been rising a little. Demand remains quite strong, and has overtaken demand from solo investors. We also see a rise in demand from those seeking to refinance, with around 31% expecting to transact, in 2013, this was 13%. Finally, we see an uptick in First Time Buyers looking to buy, support, as we will see later by the FHOG available. First Time Buyers are also saving harder, with 82% saving, up from a low of 71% in 2014.
Given the rotation we have described, there is a slowing of demand for more finance (relatively speaking) from both Portfolio and Solo Investors, while demand from First Time Buyers, Up Traders and those seeking to Refinance is greater.
Overall the home price growth expectations is lower, and trending down. We see that Up Traders now more bullish than Portfolio or Solo Investors.
Finally, we see that usage of mortgage brokers continues to vary by segment, with those seeking to refinance most likely to use a broker, (77%), then First Time Buyers (64%) and Portfolio Investors (50%)
Next time we will look in more detail and the drivers within each segment.
The results from this analysis will also flow into the next edition of our flagship report The Property Imperative, due out next month.
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