Foreigners buy 10% of homes in Australia
03 June 2015 by News Desk
Foreign investors have been blamed for driving up property prices in Australia, but new figures show foreigners account for only a small percentage of sales.
First-home buyers account for 25% of sales in Australia. Less than 10% of these properties are bought by foreign buyers or investors.
New figures from National Australia Bank reveal that 70% of all sales to foreign buyers were below $1 million. Most foreign buyers operate at the lower end of the market, with 41% buying properties between $500,000 and $1 million, while 30 % bought properties worth less than $500,000. Only five per cent of foreign investor purchases were for premium properties worth more than $5 million.
In Queensland, around 85 per cent of sales were below $1 million, while in NSW, almost 60 per cent were sub-$1 million, NAB’s quarterly residential property report shows. Main areas of interest for foreign buyers are Sydney and Melbourne.
