Melbourne has slid down overseas buyers’ wishlists, with more searching for homes in sunny Queensland instead ahead of the country’s borders reopening.
New Zealanders were the most keen to call Australia home, followed by househunters based in the United States, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
PropTrack’s Overseas Search Data Report author Karen Dellow said despite Melbourne spending more time in lockdown than anywhere else in the world, the city was trumped only by Queensland to still figure among the top-five Aussie markets being sought by international buyers.
“Overseas property seekers are looking longer term; looking to the future. So when Melbourne opens back up again, it’s primed to bounce back,” Ms Dellow said. Melbourne’s infrastructure, good universities and better job prospects were among the drawcards that made the city an attractive place to live.
Glen Waverley, Toorak and Doncaster East were among the most popularly searched suburbs, according to realestate.com.au search data for the three months to September.
Chinese buyers homed in on Glen Waverley, Melbourne’s CBD and Toorak in their Victorian searches. Glen Waverley and Doncaster East were popular with Hong Kong-based buyers.
New Zealanders dreamt the most of making a move to the Gold Coast, Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Melbourne and Cairns.
And greater Melbourne figured among the top search results for people from the UK, Singapore and the US.
Ms Dellow said the popularity of postcodes such as Toorak was likely in part due to its prestige. In Glen Waverley, the area’s local elite schools made it appealing.
But the primary driver of the search results was the large existing expat communities in those postcodes.
She said many of the suburbs in the top Victorian rankings were consistently popular with foreign buyers before the pandemic.
“Overseas property seekers are very much attracted to where people from their country and where their friends and family have already moved to,” she said.
“They’ve always been in the top suburbs from overseas searches from China and Hong Kong. It’s actually more recently that we’ve only just started to see Brisbane and the Gold Coast move up into those lists.”
The top five most searched regions by all foreign buyers were the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Melbourne’s CBD, Sydney and the Sunshine Coast.
Ms Dellow said she did not expect a big rise in buyer competition or prices once borders reopened and foreign buyers re-entered the market.
This was because Australian buyers made up the majority of local residential property purchases.
TOP 5 SEARCHES BY FOREIGN BUYERS (Three months to September):
WHERE ARE THE SEARCHES COMING FROM?
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