Mainland Chinese demand for Australian real estate is surging and investors are buying more expensive properties, according to agents.
Advertisement
If the first five days of the Lunar New Year were any indication, more mainland Chinese investors would complete home purchases this year than they did a year earlier, said Peter Li, the general manager of Plus Agency in Sydney.
“Inquiries from mainland Chinese buyers increased by 20 per cent during the holiday period,” he said. “In the past five days, we have secured 12 deposits for properties in the Sydney suburbs and they were for bigger homes.”
Li’s agency has an overseas office in Shanghai. He said mainland Chinese buyers were looking at homes priced above A$1 million (US$627,000), higher than what they had budgeted previously.
One of his clients is “a wealthy family in mainland China that bought a A$5 million home with five bedrooms in Chatswood”, a suburb that is about 15 minutes away from Sydney’s central business district.
Advertisement
“Their initial budget was A$3.5 million for a duplex house, but they changed their mind and bought a more expensive home,” Li said.