Property Investing Forecast: What’s Ahead In 2020?

PHOTO: Investment property

There’s little doubt that 2019 was a rollercoaster of a year for the Australian property market, but if you’re curious about what 2020 could bring to the property market and what investors plan to do, Your Investment Property editor Sarah Megginson and property commentator and investment advisor Michael Yardney unpack the latest result of this year’s Property Investment Sentiment Survey.

More than 1800 respondents took part in this year’s Property Investor Sentiment Survey, Australia’s largest survey of property investors. The annual survey is run by Your Investment Property, Australia’s only independent property investment magazine, PropertyUpdate, Australia’s #1 property blog; and onthehouse, a Corelogic company.

So what were the biggest takeaways?

New Year, new hope
Investors who participated in the survey are optimistic about their plans for 2020.

A whopping 42% said they plan to buy a property in the next 12 months. Forty-one percent said they would buy a house, while 31% would purchase a property with potential add value.

Forty-three percent of the respondents also said they would buy an established property, while 35% would buy a property with value-add potential (renovation or development).

Only 7% would buy an apartment as an investment property.

Yardney says this isn’t surprising.

“(There) is a lot of negative news about apartments, especially new ones, the high-rise one, the ones with structural problems. And apartments haven’t performed as well as a house,” he says.