The value of Chinese foreign investment approvals for Australian real estate doubled last financial year, surging to a record $24 billion.
Data from the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) show that China remains the largest source of proposed foreign investment in Australian real estate – including both residential and commercial real estate. Chinese investors compromised close to half (41%) of the total value of real estate approvals by foreign country in 2014-15.
The total value of Chinese investment also more than tripled foreign investment from the USA, Australia’s second biggest source of proposed foreign investment.
According to FIRB, the flux of Chinese investment was driven mainly by a large increase in residential real estate approvals.
Australia is now the second-most-popular destination for Chinese property investors after the US, according to search data from Juwai.com, a popular international real estate portal in China.
The total value of foreign investment in Australia residential real estate, specifically, surged by 75% in 2014-15. The FIRB data showed that there were 36,841 applications by foreign investors worldwide to buy residential properties, totalling $61 billion.
Investment in commercial real estate declined over the year, falling by 9% to $36 billion.
Victoria attracted the most interest from foreign investors, with 16,775 applications approved for real estate investment over the year. This was followed by New South Wales (12,349) and Queensland (5,023). There were only 88 applications by foreign investors in the Northern Territory, the least amount of any state or territory.
