Experts say government policy must strike a balance fair to both tenants and landlords"The tenants depended on me and I depended on the tenants," she said.
"And what our survey also showed — a significant percentage have actually said they will never be an investor ever again."The strength of the link between pro-renter regulations and property divestment has been questioned by one research body, which added that a booming market had offered property owners another strong incentive to sell.
Piecing together a retirement plan, she bought a rundown house — what she called "the worst house in the best street" — in Bendigo, and began contributing rental returns to a self-managed super fund after she renovated and rented it.They were still generating income when she decided a changing regulatory playing field meant the money could be invested elsewhere with less risk — and sold both.
The September survey of more than 1,700 investors found the exodus was particularly pronounced in Melbourne, where a quarter of property investors who responded sold at least one rental home in the past year.The wall of Dean Campion's home office is decorated with the framed listings of properties in his investment portfolio, which once spanned nine properties in four states.
He said he had owned about eight properties along his property journey, which was helped by a $40,000 lottery dividend early on and hindered when rising interest rates put him in "danger of nearly losing everything" later in the 1990s.At the rental home — a four-bedroom house leased to a single mother — he recently increased the rent from $345 to $400 per week, which he said was the first rent rise over her seven-year tenancy.
AHURI's Michael Fotheringham said it was "simplistic" to assume the properties are passing from investors to owner-occupiers, given home ownership remains out of reach for many.