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Comment by ageofwant | Hacker News Reader

Here in Sydney and Melbourne, 1/4 of all apartments are sold to Chinese, even Chinese government owned corporations.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-12/selling-the-australian...

It's illegal in Australia for foreigners to buy existing homes though, so what they buy are off-the-plan units, and (from what I can tell) significantly (double-digit percentages) overpriced compared to existing stock, or even smaller developments that don't cater to foreigners as explicitly. Many of them seem to be bought to rent out, with the idea of living in them 'occasionally' or 'sometime'. I wonder how many of these investments make financial sense. (then again, just for portfolio diversification it's worth even paying for, maybe that's where the price excess comes from).

It's an interesting economic dynamic, in-explainable with orthodox theory, it's really about the circumstances. Which makes it difficult to analyze and model, too.

To be fair, recent mainland Chinese immigration has enlivened a lot of otherwise dead areas of Sydney, and I'd wager Melbourne. Places that were ghostly failed malls are now thrumming 24 hour apartment-ringed nexus for food and entertainment. (Eg. Chatswood.) A similar transformation has permanently improved central Auckland. Smiles from China, where I now choose to live ... a Sydney native.

Out of curiosity, where are all the jobs supporting the people now living there?

Are they commuting to more urban areas?

Mostly investment properties as far as I can tell, renting to students, singles, that kind of thing. So fairly mobile renters, they commute to where they need to be.

Oh not saying its bad at all. Investment is good. Just a comment on what seems to be a global trend.

I don't think that people here are complaining about immigration, so much as absentee landlords.

I worked in Chatswood for 4 years and the amount of development that went up (or finished) was incredible! Right around the Chatswood station there are 3 or 4 new high rise apartment buildings. All the new shops that opened up were a boon for lunch time offerings :)

This is the "Great Blowing Sound". Ross Perot's "great sucking sound" in reverse. All that money we sent out the trade deficit is flooding back in to real assets in the U.S and elsewhere in the western world.

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