- only loans so that their debt does not decline over time. if housing prices were to fall substantially, therefore, such borrowers might find themselves in a position of negative equity more quickly than borrowers with an equivalent starting lvr that had paid down some principal. indeed, the macro - financial risks are potentially heightened with investor lending. for example, since it is not their home, investors might be more inclined to sell investment properties in an environment of falling house prices in order to minimise capital losses. this might exacerbate the fall in prices, impacting the housing wealth of all home owners. as investors purchase more new dwellings than owner - occupiers, they might also exacerbate the housing construction cycle, making it prone to periods of oversupply and having a knock on effect to developers. data from the australian taxation office ( ato ) provide some information on housing investors. while not particularly timely, these data show that the share of taxpayers who are property investors has increased steadily over the past few years. in 2014 / 15, around 11 per cent of the adult population, or just over 2 million people, had at least one investment property and around 80 per cent of those were geared ( graph 10 ). most of those investors own just one investment property but an increasing number own multiple properties. there has also been a marked increase in the share of geared housing investors who are over 60. these factors do not necessarily increase the risk of financial stress but they bear watching. http : / / www. rba. gov. au / speeches / 2018 / sp - ag - 2018 - 02 - 20. html 12 / 14 21 / 02 / 2018 household indebtedness and mortgage stress | speeches | rba graph 10 the recent increases in interest rates on investor loans, in response to apra's measures to reduce the growth in investor lending, has probably affected the cash flows of investors. interest rates on outstanding variable - rate interest - only loans to investors have increased by 60 basis points since late 2016. however, over the past few years, lenders have been assessing borrowers'ability to service the loan at a minimum interest rate of at least 7 per cent. so while interest rates and required repayments have likely risen, many borrowers should be relatively resilient to the recent changes. furthermore, a large proportion of interest - only loans are due to expire between 2018 and 2022. some borrowers in this situation will simply move

finally, at previous hearings members of the committee asked about the number of women at senior levels of the reserve bank. i am pleased to be able to report that we have made further progress here. of the three assistant governors responsible for monetary and financial policies at the reserve bank, two are women. and women run over a third of the departments in the bank, including those responsible for the bank ’ s economic analysis function and for the implementation of monetary policy. so it ’ s quite a big change from days gone by when almost all of these important positions were held by men. i want to highlight these changes in the hope that they might provide some inspiration to women who are thinking of studying economics, finance and business. there are fantastic career opportunities out there and it would be great to see more women studying these disciplines, and perhaps considering a career at australia ’ s central bank. we are currently working on some initiatives to encourage this, at both the school and university level. thank you. my colleagues and i are here to answer your questions. 4 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches