Is Asian Investment In Our Properties Irking Us?

There can be no better phrase to encapsulate the Asian interest in Australian properties than the one Pete Wargent uses in his article for the website Property Update- “it is a subject receiving reams of coverage of late”. Is it all deserving coverage? Yes it is. After all, the foreign investment push, in no uncertain terms, has attained a noticeable proportion and China is playing really big with its disposable income.

‘Good education for children’ behind the Chinese juggernaut

Wargent points out that most of the Asian investors will concentrate their sights on urban, close to CBD, properties, and only very few will venture into semi-rural towns or regional areas. Good education has always been the focus of Chinese parents and “one child policy” adopted by the Chinese government has made them even more convinced about the idea of educating their children well. Australia is a great place to pursue this “good education” dream.

Those Chinese parents who can afford, wish to buy properties where their children can stay during their educational years in Australia. On top of it, parents also see such properties as their temporary residences when they visit their children.

Australia offers many investment incentives

As an aside, Australia is a monetary safe haven, its property market is expected to give back a decent return and its lifestyle is closing on the levels of the top cosmopolitan cities of the world. Cumulatively, these are great reasons for the Asian push into its soil.

Hotspots of Australia

Brighton, Fitzroy, North Melbourne and Southbank are among the prime investment spots for the Chinese fraternity and their arc is expected to spread across the urban centres, though be limited to them in the future.

You can read the original article here.

No one can ignore the impact of Asian investment and the way it is giving a higher sticker to our property prices. The prestige market is already reeling under pressure as the lifestyle-oriented investors from the east are showing their willingness to buy properties above their logical prices.

Foreign investments cannot disturb our real estate dynamics

This said, I will be the last one to be convinced that the foreign juggernaut will eat away the ambitions of the local investors. First, the external investment was not even 2% of the total investment in Australian property last year. For all the noise it made, $5 billion out of $240 billion is not a big landing.

Second, the foreigners cannot control the established property market and the ratio of new: established is too meagre to actually disturb the dynamics of the established market.

The time, as we are going to witness, should be laced with enterprise though.

What do you make of the Chinese interest in the Australian properties?