Australia top overseas destination for China home buyers this year

Australia has emerged as the top overseas destination for Chinese home buyers in the first half of this year, according to the latest rankings from real estate platform Juwai IQI.

Based on the volume of buyer enquiries received by the platform, Jiuwai IQI said Chinese buyers are more interested in Australia than in other popular markets such as Canada, the UK and the US.

“We expect Chinese investment in Australian property to grow by at least 30 per cent in 2023 compared to 2022,” Daniel Ho, co-founder of Jiuwai IQI, which helps sell foreign property to Asian clients, said in March, adding that Chinese buyers are coming back, and they’re going to come back more in the second half of the year than they did in the first.”

The UAE, which was ranked 13th in 2021, moved up to eighth place this year, while Germany fell out of the top ten. The top 10 favourite destinations also include four Southeast Asian countries – Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore.

Kashif Ansari, chief executive officer and co-founder of the group, said demand in China is likely to grow as international travel resumes. He said a large portion of property transactions still depended on buyers being able to travel abroad, and outbound travel had yet to rebound to pre-epidemic levels due to limited air capacity and expensive fares.