Chinese investment in Australia has risen exponentially over the past 5 years. If you look at overall foreign investment in Australia, yes the US and UK are dominant. But if you look at residential only the Chinese will likely be dominant even if you don't include HK. US and UK investors don't tend to invest in single residential assets, they are focused on development and commerical/rural assets of which I have no issues with.
Investment in single residential assets by foreigners on-the-other-hand, particularity if they are coming form significantly more populated countries and possessing or having the ability to access significantly more or cheaper capital than local Australian buyers can lead to significant market price distortions that create affordability issues for locals as they pull prices higher.
Here are the FIRB comments and stats to prove the rise of the Chinese investor in Aust. residential assets. What will 2016-17 data reveal?.
"Proposed investment in 2014‑15 by selected country, disaggregated by sector, is shown in Table 2.12. China remains the largest source of proposed foreign investment in Australia, mainly driven by a large increase in residential real estate approvals. The other major sources of proposed investment were the United States, Singapore, Japan and Canada.
The value of approvals for China has increased by around 68 per cent since 2013‑14 and account for around 33 per cent of the total value of approvals by foreign country in 2014‑15 (excluding the value attributed to advanced ‘off‑the‑plan’ developer certificates and Australia)."
"In 2015‑16, China was the largest source of foreign investment approvals by both value and number. While the value of approvals for Chinese investors did increase, it increased by less than 6 per cent since 2014‑15. This was a significantly lower increase in comparison to the greater than 60 per cent increase in the value of approvals between 2013‑14 and 2014‑15.
The value of approvals for Chinese investors represents 26 per cent of the total value of approvals. Investors from China received approval for a number of large value transactions included in the manufacturing, electricity and gas sector, for example TransGrid. Chinese interest in Australia’s real estate sector remains strong with the value of approvals for Chinese investors growing by 31 per cent since 2014 15."
