Alicia Barry

And I'm Alicia Barry, ABC finance reporter and host of The Business on Thursdays.

Well, I'm in your hands, Michael.

Let's get this show on the road.

Well, the RBA does periodically put out these bulletins, as they call them, from various people in their research team.

This one is from Alexandra McKilson, and it really digs quite deep using some newly available microdata to really find out who...

Australia's housing investors are it goes back to 1999 and covers the period all the way up to 2023 and it may come as no surprise I don't think this is a spoiler that Australia's housing investors are wealthier

older, and they come as not too much risk to the financial system.

And that was sort of the purpose of this report.

Yeah, that's right.

And given the sort of, I guess, demographic of who these housing investors are, it becomes quite clear that they're not really because they haven't taken on the huge amount of debt that you would have to take on if you were going to be a housing investor right now.

So there are still sort of young people entering the market.

That's true.

But the bulk have been housing investors really throughout that period.

And they do come from that high income spectrum.

In fact, 10% of the property or 10% of the working age population are property investors and they hold 20% of the properties in the country.

So you can kind of get that idea.

And it does just really, and I keep saying it, but skew to that 1%.

wealthier, older demographic.

Between 1999 and 2023, the typical age of the property investor went from 45 to 51 years.

Yeah, that's right.