Investor home loan applications have plunged since the federal government’s tax changes came into effect in May as new figures reveal Australians are pouring record sums into exchange-traded funds instead.
At Commonwealth Bank alone, home investor home loans have dropped roughly 28 per cent.
The news comes amid a record $7 billion flowing into Australian-listed ETFs in August alone — the biggest monthly investment on record — a figure that raises questions about whether property is losing its status as the nation’s investment of choice.
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Nobody’s claiming the same dollars moved from one to the other, but the timing has one of Australia’s best-known investors convinced they’re connected.
That was Motley Fool Chief Investment Officer Scott Phillips’ reaction on 7NEWS’ latest episode of Money Talks, powered by Vanguard, when asked about the scale of the shift.
‘Almost seven billion a month. Record numbers.’
Phillips’ theory isn’t that money is being pulled out of property and dropped into shares.
It’s that would-be investors who’d normally be saving a deposit for a rental property are redirecting those same monthly savings into the share market instead, because the numbers on property no longer add up the way they used to.
“If I’m not going to do property, what else is there?” Phillips said.
“ETFs, shares in general, are a logical place for that money to go.”
He points to investors, particularly at the big banks, who were previously putting money aside every month toward a property purchase and are now asking the same question with nowhere obvious to put the answer except shares.
The quiet winner nobody’s talking about
While property and shares fight it out in the headlines, superannuation just became a lot more attractive without anyone announcing it.
Contributions inside super are still taxed at 15 per cent instead of your marginal rate, and the reduced capital gains tax rate hasn’t changed.
With the tax perks of investing outside of super now smaller, super’s relative advantage just went up.
Phillips says he’s already fielding calls from people shovelling extra cash into it to capture the benefit.
The chart one investor keeps framed on his wall
As Phillips detailed on 7NEWS’ latest episode of Money Talks, powered by Vanguard, every year Vanguard releases an index chart tracking a hypothetical $10,000 investment in the Australian share market since 1996.
Left completely untouched, that $10,000 would be worth roughly $132,000 today.
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A 13-fold return across three decades that included the Asian financial crisis, the dot-com crash, the GFC, and the COVID crash.
“It’s not a straight line,” Phillips said.
“It’s super wiggly.”
The point isn’t that the market dodged disaster.
It’s that it compounded straight through it.
“The market turned $10,000 into $132,000 not in the absence of all that stuff, but despite all of that stuff,” he said.
Phillips is clear this isn’t a blanket call to dump savings into the market regardless of timeline.
Anyone building toward a goal inside three years, like a home deposit, should stick to term deposits or high-interest savings, not shares or property.
“If you need a fixed dollar amount on a fixed date, the maybes don’t help,” he said.
Disclaimer
All information in MoneyTalks is general in nature and does not take into account your personal circumstances. You should always seek independent, professional financial advice from a licensed expert before making any financial decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Vanguard Investments Australia Ltd (ABN 72 072 881 086 / AFSL 227263) is the product issuer of Vanguard Personal Investor and the Vanguard Australian funds and ETFs. Vanguard Super Pty Ltd (ABN 73 643 614 386 / AFSL 526270) is the trustee of Vanguard Super. Read the relevant IDPS Guide, PDS and TMD available at vanguard.com.au and consider if a product is right for you before making an investment decision.
Vanguard analysis using SuperRatings Fee Report, shows Vanguard MySuper Lifecycle as one of the lowest fee MySuper products as at 30 June 2026. Other fees and costs may apply, please refer to the PDS.
