Property investment is still number one 

16 July 2004 

The latest ING Melbourne Institute Household Savings and Investment report for the June quarter 2004 shows the majority of Australians are choosing to pay off their home loans and invest in property with any spare cash they have.

According to the report, 26.6% of recipients said they intended to repay debt, including home loan debt with new savings. The ING data shows paying off debt has grown in popularity over the past two years, with 17.7% of people in June 2003 saying they would use additional cash to pay off their debts while 15.8% said the same in June 2002. 

Investment in property was the second most popular way to spend cash, with 25.3% of recipients saying they would use new savings to buy real estate, down from 31.8% in June 2003. 

A further 8.5% of respondents said they would use new savings to invest in the share market. This is close to the record 8.9% of people who said they would invest in shares in the December quarter 2001. 

8.3% of people said they would prefer to invest cash in managed funds, the highest percentage since 8.4% in December 2001 quarter. 

The least popular form of investment, but one of the fastest growing, was investment in superannuation. Of all respondents, 2.7% said they would invest new savings in superannuation, compared with 1.6% in the March 2004 quarter and 1.4% in the June 2003 quarter. 

The survey also pointed out the fact that a record 78.5% of respondents said they had superannuation of some form, which reflects the compulsory nature of super.