Should you buy that investment property this year?

Property investors are set to snap up homes and apartments across Australia in 2022, as interest rates remain low and rental vacancy rates continue to tighten.

But experts are forecasting it won’t all be smooth sailing, as future landlords face the uncertainty of both federal and state elections, with housing policies that are yet to be defined. They also face possible interest rate hikes, which are looming on the back of inflationary pressures

While interest rates may not rise immediately, tighter lending rules introduced in 2021 have already made it tougher for investors to get a mortgage, Loan Market Mortgage Broker Daniel Koutsamanis said. But that hadn’t yet had a major impact on the number of people looking to invest.

Changes to loan rules, including the calculation of debt to income ratios, (the amount someone can borrow depending on their earnings), and of interest rate buffers that determine if a borrower can afford a mortgage if interest rates rise by 3 per cent, had seen the amount that could be borrowed fall by between 5 and 10 per cent.

“Budgets are coming down a little bit, but there hasn’t been a drastic change,” Mr Koutsamanis said. “There’s still a fairly decent amount of confidence, with clients wanting to invest. The sentiment is still pretty decent, pretty strong.”

That confidence follows a stellar year for investors, with the number of new loan commitments jumping by 89.6 per cent across the year to October 2021, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed.

There was $9.73 billion of new loan commitments for investment properties in October alone, the data showed, despite the hit to rental markets in both Sydney and Melbourne over the year.

Rents in Melbourne dropped significantly over 2021, making it one of the cheapest capital cities to find a rental property. Apartment rents dropped by 7.5 per cent across the year to September and house rents fell by 2.3 per cent, Domain figures show.