Foreign Property Buyers Increase in WA

East Perth was the WA suburb most searched by buyers in China on a site dedicated to promoting Australian property.

WA property is proving its broad appeal, with new figures revealing foreign investors are keen to own a piece of the state.

The latest Foreign Investment Review Board annual report reveals approvals for foreign buyers in WA were up by almost 30 per cent.

That’s 2043 approvals, compared with 1572 in the previous financial year.

While the number of applications didn’t rate anywhere near as high as the eastern states, the increase showed WA was still well and truly on the radar.

Victoria led the pack with 16,775 approvals, followed by New South Wales with 12,349 and Queensland 5023.

Nationally, sales to overseas buyers jumped to 36,841 in 2014-15 from 23,054 the previous year. A big number of approvals for overseas buyers involved Chinese investors.

Buyers in the US were also big investors, followed by Singapore, Japan and Canada.

According to myfun.com — a website written in Mandarin that helps Chinese buyers find Australian properties for investment, education and immigration — East Perth was the most-searched suburb in WA.

The East Perth housing market experienced strong price growth in the past year and a big number of sales.

CoreLogic RP Data figures reveal a 19.1 per cent increase in the median house price to $1.37 million, and 313 house sales.

Many of the WA suburbs searched by overseas buyers were close to the Perth CBD.

Others topping the list for online searches by Chinese buyers were Nedlands, Bayswater, Wembley and Fremantle.

The majority of investment by foreign buyers in WA was for new dwellings, with 788 approvals during the past financial year.

This was worth $650 million, while investment in established properties was worth $490 million. Vacant land was also popular, with investment of $210 million during the period.

Great info , thanks )

East Perth is a lot of apartments. Ideal for a "buy and forget" to hide your money.

Nedlands - expensive and will always be near the top of the tree in realestate

Bayswater - will be searched more due to train airport link, and the hire car company. But it's an improving area.

Wembley - expensive, and improving. More apartments are going in.

Fremantle - 2nd city

This could well slow things down a bit: http://www.brokernews.com.au/news/breaking-news/westpac-halts-property-loans-to-foreigners-215101.aspx

A lot of time when one major lender moves others follow.

And more general information on the topic: Australia is the second most popular country with Chinese property investors after the USA. By Juwai’s estimates, Chinese spent USD 5 billion on Australian real estate in 2015, which is a substantial increase on the previous year. Commercial real estate dominated all other forms of Chinese investment in Australia for the second year running, capturing 45% of the total deal volume in 2015. Between January and September of last year, they injected approximately USD 3.34 billion in commercial property. Source https://tranio.com/canada,new_zealand,australia,united-kingdom,usa/analytics/top_five_countries_for_chinese_property_investments_5131/

Hi ktee! Great post. Thanks for the valuable information about foreign property buyers.

This could well slow things down a bit: http://www.brokernews.com.au/news/breaking-news/westpac-halts-property-loans-to-foreigners-215101.aspx

 

A lot of time when one major lender moves others follow.

Do many foreign buyers take out mortgage? I thought it was more to do with hiding money away in bolt holes?

A worthy read article about how Trump's victory will influence the US, Canadian and European property markets https://tranio.com/world/news/what-trumps-victory-means-for-the-us-property-market_5219/

Do many foreign buyers take out mortgage? I thought it was more to do with hiding money away in bolt holes?

If they are on 457 visa and have proof of income/salary, then it is possible that they could get a mortgage. However for overseas buyers not working/living in Australia, I don't see how they could get a mortgage from an Australian bank. There are a lot of foreign owned properties in WA where no-one lives permanently. A friend of mine owns a gardening and house maintenance business and half of his clients are non-residential as they live in either, Singapore, China or Hong Kong, and just use the property for holidays or to house their offspring who are currently studying at university here. Guess too, Australian property is a good place to "park" money out of your country of origin, for various reasons.

Wow...Is that true?

Wow...Is that true?

Why would I write it otherwise? It is the same in every Australian capital city. Don't just take my word for it, do some research.