The December 2014 Quarterly Australian residential property survey from National Australia Bank indicates the property types catching the eye of foreign investors and shows that New South Wales has replaced Queensland as the strongest state in Q4.
Foreign buyers are less active everywhere in Australia, with the exception of Victoria, where they account for a third of all new property sales. Foreigners are mostly targeting properties priced under AU$1million: over 50% of purchases are of apartments, with one-third houses and the remainder in re-development.
“Foreign buyers accounted for 14.8% of total demand for new property in Q4, down from 16.8% in Q3. In Victoria, however, they accounted for a new high of 32.5% of total demand,” says NAB group chief economist Alan Oster. “We are forecasting average house price growth of around 4% over the year to end 2015 and 2% over the year to end-2016.”