An award-winning broker has published a book for Chinese investors about investing in Australian property.
The book, authored by
Ren Wong, managing director of N1 Finance, was published in December and is now available at bookshops in China as well as major online retailers in China, such as Amazon.cn. It is written in Chinese, but the title translated to English is “House is not Banana”.
Speaking to
Australian Broker, Wong – who also launched the first Chinese language mortgage comparison site, chengdai.com.au – said the book aims to help the growing number of Chinese foreign investors avoid “pitfalls” in the Australian real estate market.
“Chinese foreign investors are a growing phenomenon in the Australian real estate sector and will continue at least for the coming years, however, a lot of them are still relatively uneducated about the local market in Australia from a real estate investment and financing perspective.
“This book aims to help foreign investors avoid the pitfalls investing in Australian real estate.”
It helps investors avoid these pitfalls by discussing the different financing options and the various foreign borrowing policies followed by Australian banks. It also offers tips to help foreign investors leverage the internet, says Wong, tying it in with chengdai.com.au.
“The book’s purpose is to educate foreign buyers of the financing options available to them, as there are still a lot of foreign buyers not aware of the Australian lenders’ foreign borrowing policies," he told
Australian Broker.
“The book also details how foreign buyers can rely on internet to research properties and home loan options, which of course brings me to discuss our mortgage comparison website chengdai.com.au.”
Chengdai.com.au was launched by N1 Finance in April last year. Almost one year on and the site attracts more than 4,000 unique visitors a month. Wong says he expects the impressive growth trajectory to continue this year.
“We expect [the number of unique visitors] to double within six months as more marketing rolls out – especially in other cities such as Brisbane and Melbourne where we haven’t done much marketing at the moment.”
Currently, the site compares 35 lenders with over 350 home loan products. 99% of the sites visitors are from the local Chinese community. However, following the release of the book, Wong can expect growing demand from mainland Chinese investors too.
Speaking to
Australian Broker about the speculation of a downturn in the foriegn Chinese investor market, Wong says he is not convinced. In fact, he says the Asian investment market is opening up.
“We don't see the downturn based on our current pipeline; we are still seeing a lot of interest at seminars in China," he said.
“Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are also making big progress into investing in Australian real estate.”
