Developer’s off loading 50 percent of homes to foreign buyers

According to The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Victoria’s largest home builder is selling half of its new homes in the Sanctuary Lakes Resort and Featherbrook Estates to overseas buyers. The development includes a total of 2500 lots, suggesting as many as 1,250 lots are now in foreign hands.

Mark Vujovich, General Manager of Sales and Marketing for Simonds told The Age “We have 23 agents in China operating in five provinces including all the major cities, We are introduced word of mouth through our clients and have worked hard at building relationships over there.”

ยป Developers court overseas buyers amid fears of greater urban sprawl – The Age, 7th February 2011.




9 Comments

  1. The rules were for used property, not new. Always been ok to flog off new stuff to foreigners. The fact that they are now eating up outer suburb happy family homes and eating up our land, along with pushing up prices is the problem. Amazing that local developers dont even have to take into account local wages, affordabillity etc etc anymore.

  2. There’s definitely a major marketing push of Aussie properties in Asia. Check this
    http://www.1688.com.au/about/CMPW.shtml

    However, this is more likely to be a last ditch, desperate attempt by a big builder to arrest the declines. If it was so lucrative, why tell the world and risk further Government foreign investment restrictions (assuming those existing had an impact)? Two weeks ago we

  3. What does this suggest?

    That locals are too smart to pay the asking price?

    “There are two types of buyers – those that want to migrate and move their children here for the education system and then there’s straightout investors buying something to rent out”.

    It sounds to me like they’ve sold the “capital gains” story to speculators…

  4. Please remember everyone,

    These properties being sold are on the outskirts of our cities, so no public transport, no real services and no real local employment, not to mention long traveling times. Plus most of these people do not speak a word of english, so how that will get employment will be interesting to say the least.

    In general as others have said, locals are too smart to pay heaps for these crappy developments, in fact many of them will turn into slums some time in the future…. see Neil Jenman’s article :

    http://www.jenman.com.au/news_alert.php?id=108

    But foreigners are not so smart and as mentioned by others are being used as a last ditched effort to unload their stock of land and houses……

    Meanwhile back at camp deluded, the government has come out and claims the so called resources boom will go on for another 15 years at least……. apparently the fact that China is building houses, factories, and government buildings it simply does not need and has no one to occupy, does not seem to matter……..

    http://www.theage.com.au/business/asian-growth-to-feed-continued-mining-boom-20110208-1akyy.html

    By the way, I’m still waiting for my benefit from this resources boom too….. other than ever rising taxes and costs….

  5. Well Romsey, Camp Deluded maybe correct that the boom will last another 15 yrs, but only on a technicality.
    I assume that they mean that China will deflate slowly. It will take a few yrs (maybe not 15) for all the credit to bleed out of the system.

  6. Homebuyer2009, do some research. http://ozhouse.1688.com.au/ Last time I checked this wasn’t banned by Chinese authorities. In terms of the hard copy being distributed in Melbourne, who do you think receives it? I live in a Asian buying ‘hotspot’ (established inner city) and the local agents have them in the baskets ready to go for the ‘tourist shoppers’. They get snapped up fast.

    Not arguing that fringe developments aren’t a poor investment, especially in the short-medium term. Not sure if you’re suggesting that increasing the supply of housing in fringe areas is a good thing? As a developer in the said suburbs I can tell you there is no shortage of property. That is a joke (see my second last para, prev post). The problem most opponents have with the foreign purchases is much of the stock is taken out of circulation and left empty. It is a purely speculative and/or defensive purchase for foreigners.

    “So if you are unwilling to pay the asking price, the house won

  7. http://ozhouse.1688.com.au/

    According to RP data, 3% of Melburnians were born in either China, HK or Malaysia. If they are permanent residents or Aust citizens, they would be probably be reading it because their options are limited when it comes to literature advertising homes for sale. They probably make up a good proportion of the readership. According to Wiki: “Over two-thirds of people in Melbourne speak only English at home (68.8 %). Italian is the second most common home language (4.0 %), with Greek third and Chinese fourth, each with over 100,000 speakers”. I find the circulation of 18,000 ample to satisfy the demand of over 100k speakers.

    I checked out the web site, and even though I do not understand Chinese, it does not seem to be the same type of sales spruiking that the article from the age is getting you unnerved about. Most of the properties listed are of established residences with prices exceeding the cost of which “tourist” Asian buyers are limited to.

    The search function is also not very “tourist” friendly, as I am sure not many “tourists” would know the suburbs well enough to be able to pick and choose from a list of all suburbs in Melbourne in order to filter their search results.

    “The problem most opponents have with the foreign purchases is much of the stock is taken out of circulation and left empty. It is a purely speculative and/or defensive purchase for foreigners.”

    Buying a house and then not renting it out is a poor investment. Their money would work better for them in a regular savings account. A diversified share portfolio would probably net ~10% including dividends. If they are indeed being left empty, then it will work out well when they finally decide to sell the poor investments to the benefit of local buyers.

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