Foreign investors from China upped their spending on Aussie homes by $1bn in the past financial year, with up to a third of the buyers looking for Victorian homes. And a leading China-Australia property expert believes “Australia’s future is Asian”, suggesting that many of the Chinese investors are buying homes with a plan to one day move into them.
It comes as the total number of offshore applications to buy properties in the lucky country rose to 6576, the highest figure since before the pandemic.
But it’s China’s uptick that has raised eyebrows, with the superpower’s residents approved to splash $3.4bn on Australian residential real estate in past financial year — almost a third of that between April 1 and June 30.
Buyers from Hong Kong spent an extra $600m, with the combined $4bn total more than half of the $7.9bn spent by all foreign investors snapping up Aussie homes globally.
Investors from Vietnam spent $400m, while those in Taiwan and Singapore added $300m each to the tally.
The Foreign Investment Review Board’s quarterly foreign investment report revealed approved foreign investment proposals into residential purchases in the 2022-23 financial year had topped figures since the pandemic, rising from 4327 in the 2020-21 financial year to 6576.
Juwai IQI co-founder and group managing director Daniel Ho said “most Chinese buyers in the past year ahve been purchasing for their use” and planned to become Australian citizens.
Research from the international real estate technology group showed Melbourne and Sydney were the two main destinations for Chinese buyers.
“One-third of all Chinese buyer enquiries go to Victoria, and 30 per cent go to New South Wales; Queensland and Western Australia each account for 20 per cent of Chinese buyer enquiries,” Ho said.
Ho added that the firm believed the growth rate would slow but the aggregate dollars invested would increase in the current financial year.
