I’ve written about it before (“I am not a nutter” and “Thatâs not a Housing Affordability Crisis”), and I’m about to write about it again. Today I received a letter from my accountant (who, admittedly, is more savvy than the average accountant when it comes to property) confirming, and even encouraging purchase of geared property in a super fund. I quote:
If you have over $120,000 sitting in Superannuation you can now buy property through your superannuation fund … the SMSF makes the first installment of 20% deposit plus stamp duty/ legal costs plus the first year’s interest repayment.
And I have also come across a company called the Quantum Group that is setting up a similar structure for superannuation funds, calling them property warrants. So, there’s also an option for people whose accountants aren’t quite as savvy.
The residential property market has been performing quite well recently. For example, the average annual growth of median residential property prices in Melbourne over the last ten years has been 10.65% (according to this article, reporting Residex figures). If a property purchased at $450,000 (the current Melbourne median property price) grows at the average figure of 10.65% annually, and is purchased at a gearing level of 80% (as in the example from my accountant), then the growth is considerably higher. Ignoring tax, rents and interest payments, the $90,000 invested would become equity of around $880,000 after ten years – that’s about 25% annual growth. Not bad, and will be hard for super fund investors to ignore.
I would expect that once superannuation funds start investing directly in residential property, the big players in Australian superannuation will want to address the demand by packaging up property so that it is easy to invest in, i.e. indirect investment in residential property, or funds of geared residential property which a SMSF can buy units in. The catch will be that while the SMSF area is regulated by the ATO, the wider superannuation funds industry is regulated by APRA, and they are not going to want to see superannuation funds gearing up and putting people’s pensions at risk. The gearing cat is already out of the bag, so perhaps all they can do is cap it at a more conservative level, of say 60% (this would have produced a return of around 18% in the example above).
It is worth considering what sort of property funds the industry would be looking to set up. Generally they look to the blue-chip end of the market, so in property this would be houses or whole apartment blocks (rather than individual apartments) and in well-established suburbs such as Hawthorn, Toorak and South Yarra in Melbourne, and their equivalents in Sydney and possibly Brisbane. Such property typically goes for multiple millions of dollars, but I would expect that people living in such houses would prefer not to rent it. I don’t really know – I’ve never been in that position myself! Innovation in rental / purchase contracts will probably be required to give residents in such houses the certainty, control, or capital gains that they require. However, where there’s money, there’s incentive to fix such problems.
So, initially, I expect to see the big funds going after apartment blocks, then eventually houses, then when supply is exhausted in the blue-chip areas, moving into neighbouring areas or the other cities in Australia. A side-effect of this staggered buy-up is that these funds may not be particularly diversified. There could be a “Toorak houses” fund, or a “South Yarra apartments” fund. It may not be a bad thing – it doesn’t matter if a particular fund is not diversified as long as someone’s overall portfolio is diversified. And it could enable people buying that type of property in that type of area to invest in something that tracked the investment performance of their dwelling without having to invest in (i.e. renovate) the dwelling itself.
Is this complete speculation, or have similar things happened overseas? Well, to be honest, no. Real-estate Investment Trusts (REITs), as they are often known overseas, tend to invest in hotels, office blocks, shopping centres, and sometimes apartment blocks. Although I’m no expert, I’m not aware of big REITs buying up houses. So, this is all in the realm of speculation. But the fact that it hasn’t happened overseas should not be an indicator that it won’t happen here, as Australia tends to lead the world when it comes to putting real estate into retail funds. According to Wikipedia, the first real-estate trust was launched in Australia in 1971.
Anyway, for the everyday investor, who can’t pony-up a few million to buy a house in Toorak, the impact of competition for real-estate from the major fund managers is likely to be limited. You’re more likely to be bidding against someone running a SMSF. Unfortunately, the number of SMSFs is growing rapidly.
Finally, one thing to watch out for will be unscrupulous operators. There are already dodgey property marketers who prey upon interstate investors, e.g. Perth people buying overpriced property in Melbourne, or Melbourne people buying overpriced property in Brisbane. This will give them one more tool to exploit: that vulnerable people can invest their super into a dodgey scheme, and possibly not realise for many years that the property that they’ve bought was massively overpriced because the whole thing is so hands-off. Hopefully people know not to invest in something they don’t fully understand. It’s a vain hope, I know.