CHICAGO: Australia plans to impose a new tax on foreign property buyers after Chinese investment in Australian real estate soared 60 per cent last year, in the latest sign of a gathering international backlash against wealthy Chinese property investors.
The move, which came after locals complained about being priced out of the housing market, follows the introduction of similar, more punitive, taxes in Hong Kong and Singapore aimed primarily at discouraging the flood of mainland Chinese money into those markets. Governments in all three locations say that the new taxes are not directed at any single nationality.
In the past year, mainland Chinese buyers have become the biggest single group of foreign investors in residential property in the US, UK and Australia, as well as in key cities in other Western countries, according to real estate brokers.
In March 2014, mainland Chinese buyers accounted for nearly a quarter of all foreign purchasers of residential real estate in the US, spending about $22bn, compared with $12.8bn a year earlier, according to the US National Association of Realtors. Canadians, the second biggest group, spent $13.8bn in the same period.
Most apartments being built by Chinese developers in prime markets such as New York, London and Sydney are also being sold directly to mainland Chinese buyers…