According to Mike Zhang, an agent on the Gold Coast who specializes in real estate transactions for Chinese customers, many Chinese people are currently in a desperate attempt to sell their pieces of Queensland.
Troubled Chinese sellers are desperately trying to send money back to China in order to save their failing companies, causing a real estate “landslide.”
“The sell-off will continue as long as China’s economy has not recovered,” he asserts.
However, the opposite is occurring in Australia’s upper echelons of the real estate market. As China experiences its worst real estate crisis since allowing private real estate ownership thirty years ago, many wealthy Chinese citizens of Australia are withdrawing money from the country.
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They are trying to invest their riches in Australia, frequently beginning with a house valued at $15 million or more.
As well, many members of the aspirational middle class in China have become distressed sellers as a result of stringent capital restrictions, increased state taxes on Australian property owned by foreigners, interest rate hikes in Australia, and the terrible health of most of the Chinese economy.
According to Peter Li, managing director of Plus Agency, his Sydney-based company continued “buying, buying, buying” for its Chinese clientele prior to the epidemic.
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“We still service a lot of our Chinese clients.” “We are now assisting them in selling, selling, selling.”
The latest data from the NAB property survey, which will be updated this week to Q1, 2024 will be interesting given it showed a lift in foreign buying through the end of last year:
The market share of foreign buyers in new Australian housing markets in Q4 grew for the fifth straight quarter to a 6½ year high 11.0% – from 10.1% in Q3 and above the long-term survey average (9.1%). This points to a near five-fold increase in market share from a low of just over 2% during the COVID-pandemic in mid2021. Recovery has occurred against record migration and reports of China’s post-pandemic reopening sparking a surge of foreign interest in Australian housing, with international agents reporting an increase in enquires of over 400%.
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It may be lagged enough for both anecdata pieces to make sense.