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Three rate cuts ahead of the spring selling season have the property market hotting up. Again. Who’s buying, though? It may not be who you think.

Spurred by high rents and expectations of further price growth, investors are back as the fastest growing group of buyers, according to the latest ABS lending indicators, though by no means the largest group.

Investor numbers are on the rise.Credit:

In the June quarter, almost 50,000 investor loans were approved, in a 3.5 per cent rise from the previous quarter.

The corresponding figure for owner-occupiers was just shy of 81,000 new loans, only 0.8 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth. But here’s the thing: it’s not just straight-up investors piling back in to property, but first home buyer rent-vestors too.

Naturally, we don’t yet have 2025 figures, but first home buyers took out 12 per cent more home loans for investment purposes in 2024 than in 2023, says the ABS.

Meanwhile, over the same period, owner-occupier loans by first home buyers rose by only 5 per cent. First home buyers made 8283 new investment loan commitments in 2024.

It is a vastly different loan you should take out to invest as a well,........

© The Sydney Morning Herald