China‘s easing of the world’s toughest Covid restrictions could boost foreign demand for Australian property, a real estate group predicts.
From January 8, Chinese citizens will be allowed to travel overseas, which means international students and tourists are set to visit Australia again in large numbers.
Kashif Ansari, a co-founder and group chief executive of real estate marketing group Juwai IQI, said the return of Chinese visitors to Australia would also boost demand for Australian property.
‘China is going from virtually sealed off to nearly wide open in just a couple of weeks,’ he said.
‘This will be the first opportunity in three years for most Chinese to visit overseas real estate markets.’
China’s easing of the world’s toughest Covid restrictions could boost foreign demand for Australian property, a real estate group predicts. From January 8, Chinese citizens will be allowed to travel overseas, which means international students and tourists are set to visit Australia again in large numbers (pictured are travellers at the Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport)
Juwai IQI, which markets property to wealthy Asian investors, has Australia as the most popular market for prospective Chinese property buyers, based on enquiries, ahead of the United States, Canada, Japan, Thailand, the UK, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and South Korea.
Kashif Ansari, a co-founder and group chief executive of real estate marketing group Juwai IQI, said the return of Chinese visitors to Australia would also boost demand for Australian property
Under Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board rules, foreigners can’t buy established houses or apartments but they can buy brand new properties.
That means foreigners who aren’t permanent residents in Australia are restricted to brand new apartments and house and land packages.
Mr Ansari said it would take another 18 months for Chinese travel to return to pre-pandemic levels, and in turn revive Chinese demand for overseas properties that had fallen since the onset of Covid almost three years ago.
‘We expect Chinese outbound travel and accompanying property investment to increase rapidly in January from its current very low level,’ he said.
‘We can’t bounce back to 2019 levels all at once.
‘Outbound travel from China will snowball and may reach 2019 levels by mid-2024.’
Juwai IQI, which markets property to wealthy Asian investors, has Australia as the most popular market for prospective Chinese property buyers, based on enquiries, ahead of the United States, Canada, Japan, Thailand, the UK, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and South Korea (pictured are apartments at Rhodes in Sydney’s inner west)
China’s National Health Commission is no longer publishing daily Covid figures, despite a surge in cases following the abrupt end of draconian Covid zero isolation.
It also announced that from January 8, 2023, visitors to China would only be required to show a negative PCR test within 48 hours of departure.
Visitors to China will also no longer have to quarantine in a hotel for five days.
The Foreign Investment Review Board’s September quarter report, released in December, found China and Hong Kong to be, by far, Australia’s biggest source of residential real estate investment from overseas.
Mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for $3billion worth of approved residential real estate proposals in the 2021-22 financial year, a level more than seven times Vietnam’s $400million.
They were also well ahead of Singapore, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal and the United Kingdom.
During the September quarter, China and Hong Kong interests invested $1.2billion into Australian residential real estate, compared with $100million each from Vietnam, Singapore, India, Taiwan and Malaysia.
Under Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board rules, foreigners can’t buy established houses or apartments but they can buy brand new properties (pictured are apartments under construction at Wentworth Point in Sydney’s inner west in 2017)
The Foreign Investment Review Board’s September quarter report, released in December, found China and Hong Kong to be, by far, Australia’s biggest source of residential real estate investment from overseas
When it came to overall commercial investment across a range of industries, China was fourth behind the United States, Canada and Singapore.
The return of Chinese travellers to Australia would be occurring during a property market downturn, caused by eight Reserve Bank interest rate rises since May to tackle the worst inflation in 32 years.
The RBA cash rate is now at a 10-year high of 3.1 per cent after inflation in the year to September surged by 7.3 per cent – a level more than double the central bank’s 2 to 3 per cent target.
Sydney has been the worst-affected market, with the median house price since April diving by 11.9 per cent to $1,243,126, CoreLogic data shows.