Investors took out 40.3% of the new home loans approved in Australia in the year to June 2026, up from 37.7% a year earlier and 27.4% in the year to June 2020. The share differs widely by state. It was 48.3% in the Northern Territory and 44.1% in New South Wales, and 28.2% in the Australian Capital Territory. The largest change is in Western Australia, where investors accounted for 16.8% of new home loans six years ago and 40.2% in the latest year.
Shares are of the number of new loan commitments for dwellings, excluding refinancing. The series begins in the September quarter of 2019.
What is counted
The ABS Lending Indicators count the home loans that lenders approve each quarter, and divide them between owner-occupiers, who borrow for a home to live in, and investors, whose loan is for a residential property they will not occupy. A commitment is a loan approved and accepted by the borrower; the money may be advanced later, or occasionally not at all. This article counts loans, not dollars, and leaves out refinancing of existing loans. The count of investor loans begins in the September quarter of 2019.
Two forms of the figures are used. The national quarterly share is seasonally adjusted. The state figures are totals of the latest four quarters in original terms, which removes seasonal patterns without mixing adjusted figures across states; on that basis the eight states and territories add exactly to the national total.
The national share: a high in late 2025, then two falls
Investor share of new home loan commitments, Australia, by quarter
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Lending Indicators, June quarter 2026, Table 1 (A130268495C, A130268886L). Investor loans as a share of investor plus owner-occupier new loan commitments, by number, seasonally adjusted, September quarter 2019 to June quarter 2026.
Nationally, investors’ share of new home loans fell to 23.7% at the end of 2020 and has risen in most quarters since. It reached 40.8% in the December quarter of 2025, the highest in the series, and eased in each of the next two quarters, to 39.2% in the June quarter of 2026. Investor vs. Owner-Occupier Behaviour (21610) sets that share against its 2019–2025 average: at +1.2431σ the June quarter reading ranks 88.9 against 28 quarters, higher than 24 of the other 27. An earlier article examined the June quarter fall, and another compares this measure with the banking regulator’s.
Where the share is highest
Investor share of new home loans, year to June 2026, by state and territory
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Lending Indicators, June quarter 2026, Tables 14, 23 and 24 (new loan commitments by state, number, original). Investor loans as a share of all new home loan commitments in the four quarters to June 2026, with the share in the four quarters to June 2025.
Over the year to June 2026 the investor share was above 40% in five of the eight states and territories: the Northern Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. Victoria (36.2%) and Tasmania (35.4%) were lower, and the Australian Capital Territory, at 28.2%, was the lowest and the only one where the share fell over the year.
The smaller jurisdictions should be read with their counts. The Northern Territory’s share rests on 2,166 investor loans in the year, Tasmania’s on 3,697 and the Australian Capital Territory’s on 3,382, against 68,662 in New South Wales. New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland together account for 77.4% of all investor loans.
| Investor loans, year to June 2026 | Owner-occupier loans, year to June 2026 | Investor share, year to June 2020 | Year to June 2025 | Year to June 2026 | Growth in investor loans over the year | Growth in owner-occupier loans | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 68,662 | 87,016 | 32.1% | 42.0% | 44.1% | 15.0% | 5.7% |
| Victoria | 56,069 | 98,840 | 28.6% | 31.9% | 36.2% | 25.0% | 3.1% |
| Queensland | 51,881 | 72,600 | 24.8% | 39.8% | 41.7% | 8.4% | 0.3% |
| South Australia | 15,647 | 21,974 | 24.9% | 39.3% | 41.6% | 9.7% | −0.2% |
| Western Australia | 26,714 | 39,785 | 16.8% | 38.3% | 40.2% | 5.0% | −3.1% |
| Tasmania | 3,697 | 6,757 | 25.2% | 26.2% | 35.4% | 61.6% | 4.8% |
| Northern Territory | 2,166 | 2,318 | 18.5% | 43.4% | 48.3% | 26.4% | 3.9% |
| Australian Capital Territory | 3,382 | 8,621 | 24.7% | 29.4% | 28.2% | 5.8% | 12.3% |
| Australia | 228,218 | 337,911 | 27.4% | 37.7% | 40.3% | 14.5% | 2.4% |
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Lending Indicators, June quarter 2026, Tables 14, 23 and 24 (new loan commitments by state, number, original). Loans are new loan commitments for dwellings, excluding refinancing. Owner-occupier loans are the sum of first home buyer and other owner-occupier commitments.
Six years of change
Change in the investor share of new home loans, year to June 2020 to year to June 2026, percentage points
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Lending Indicators, June quarter 2026, Tables 14, 23 and 24 (new loan commitments by state, number, original). Change, in percentage points, in the investor share of new home loan commitments between the four quarters to June 2020 and the four quarters to June 2026.
In the year to June 2020, New South Wales had the highest investor share, 32.1%, and Western Australia the lowest, 16.8%. Six years later every state and territory has a higher share. Among the five mainland states the gap between the highest and the lowest has narrowed from 15.3 points to 7.9; with Tasmania and the two territories included it has widened, from 15.3 points to 20.1. Western Australia’s share rose 23.4 percentage points, more than doubling. The Northern Territory’s rose 29.8 points, Queensland’s 16.9 and South Australia’s 16.7. Victoria (7.6 points) and the Australian Capital Territory (3.5 points) changed least.
The past year
Growth in the number of new investor loans, year to June 2026 on the year to June 2025
APN calculation based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data: Lending Indicators, June quarter 2026, Tables 14, 23 and 24 (new loan commitments by state, number, original). Change in the number of new investor loan commitments between the four quarters to June 2025 and the four quarters to June 2026, with the change for owner-occupiers.
Lenders approved 228,218 investor loans in the year to June 2026, 14.5% more than in the year before, while owner-occupier loans rose 2.4%. Investor loans grew faster than owner-occupier loans in every state and territory except the Australian Capital Territory. The growth was fastest in Tasmania, where the number of investor loans rose 61.6% from a small base and the investor share rose 9.2 percentage points in a year. The Northern Territory (26.4%, also from a small base) and Victoria followed; in Victoria investor loans rose 25.0% and the share 4.3 points. Western Australia (5.0%) and Queensland (8.4%), where the share had already risen most among the states, grew more slowly.
What this does not show
A share of loans is not a share of purchases: buyers who pay without a loan are not counted, and a share can rise because owner-occupier lending falls as well as because investor lending rises. The figures say who borrowed, not why, and the series is too short, at less than seven years, to show what is usual over a full cycle. The ABS methodology does not state how a loan is assigned to a state, so the state figures are reported as published without a claim about where the borrowers live. The four-quarter totals to June 2026 include the two quarters in which the national share eased, and do not show how each state moved within the year.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (Reference period: June quarter 2026) ‘Table 1. Households; Housing finance; Total dwellings; By property purpose; New loan commitments; Values’ [data set], Lending Indicators [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/finance/lending-indicators/jun-quarter-2026], accessed 10 October 2026.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (Reference period: June quarter 2026) ‘Table 14. Households; Housing finance; Investors; Total dwellings excluding refinancing; By state; New loan commitments; Numbers and values’ [data set], Lending Indicators [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/finance/lending-indicators/jun-quarter-2026], accessed 10 October 2026.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (Reference period: June quarter 2026) ‘Table 23. Households; Housing finance; Non First home buyers; Owner occupier; By state; New loan commitments; Numbers and values’ [data set], Lending Indicators [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/finance/lending-indicators/jun-quarter-2026], accessed 10 October 2026.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (Reference period: June quarter 2026) ‘Table 24. Households; Housing finance; First home buyers; Owner occupier; By state; New loan commitments; Numbers and values’ [data set], Lending Indicators [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/finance/lending-indicators/jun-quarter-2026], accessed 10 October 2026.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (Reference period: June quarter 2026) Lending Indicators methodology [https://www.abs.gov.au/methodologies/lending-indicators-methodology/jun-quarter-2026], ABS Website, accessed 10 October 2026.
ABS material is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Calculations, standardisations and index readings are APN’s and are not attributable to the ABS.
Findings are presented on the basis of data and evidence alone.
