MILLIONS of dollars worth of savings of Chinese buyers have begun flooding into Queensland property, with Brisbane the key destination.
Chinese market specialist, the Ausin Group – which set up an office in Brisbane because of rising demand for property here – has been sealing at least one residential deal a day, averaging between $550,000 and $600,000 each.
The vast bulk of transactions were from individual investors, said Ausin Group managing director Joseph Zaja, with homes bought for students making up around 10 per cent of sales.
“We’re getting between 30 to 60 sales a month ($16.5M-$36M) out of mainland China and seeing that trend increasing. The signs are extremely positive, we’re looking at Brisbane growing further and gaining a larger share of sales.”
“We’ve got lots of enquiries from lots of people who have pulled out of Chinese stock and are looking at stable options offshore. It’s still volatile over there whereas property here is extremely safe and stable.”
The biggest chunk of buyers, he said, were sophisticated investors who had bought property previously in southern states, but there was also a big number for whom Brisbane would be their first ever Australian purchase.
“They’re looking at other options to diversity their holdings and Brisbane has popped up really quite recently as an option. Brisbane yields are higher than Sydney and Melbourne so from an investment point of view it seems to stack up.”
Real estate agent Tom Zhang of Yong Real Estate said some of the amounts Asian buyers were prepared to pay to get the right property was staggering.
A 10 Monteith Strett property in Robertson, which sold for $1.17M in 2013, was relisted last month when the owner returned to China and sold for $1.5M. Two years ago the bank valuation on the property was $950,000.
While that sort of capital gain was rare, Mr Zhang said Brisbane property prices were considered affordable by Chinese buyers and places like Sunnybank, Eight Miles Plains and suburbs close by could expect to see massive property rises.
Phillip Cheung and Mandy Ma have just put down $900,000 for their MacGregor home, preferring to put an offer in before auction than take a chance on missing out.
The previous buyer had paid $530,000 for the Nevern Street property but then put the home through a renovation program before resale.
“We got married last year so we planned to get a new house,” Ms Ma said, with the couple deciding to move as soon as possible after seeing how high prices elsewhere were.
“We think is Brisbane is a good start, especially compared to Sydney and Melbourne. In Brisbane you can get a start into property now.”
Ms Ma, who was from mainland China, said she met her Australian husband after completing her studies here, and the couple decided to settle here
She was impressed with the news of a massive mixed use casino development in Brisbane city which augured well for growth here.
“We feel the house prices will keep increasing. We wanted to get a property here while the prices are good.”
Mr Zaja said his firm was seeing inner city and surrounding suburbs land the most deals “because of infrastructure, amenities and accessibility”.
The biggest chunk of buyers, he said, were sophisticated investors who had bought property previously in southern states, but there were also many buyers who were making their first-ever Australian purchase.
“They’re looking at other options to diversity their holdings and Brisbane has popped up really quite recently as an option. Brisbane yields are higher than Sydney and Melbourne so from an investment point of view it seems to stack up.”
Originally published as Millions going into Brisbane homes
Source:perthnow.com.au