CHINESE-language property portal myfun.com has released its latest list of hot Australian suburbs with the family-friendly Melbourne neighbourhood of Glen Waverley taking out the top spot.
Victorian suburbs Doncaster and Box Hill rounded out the top three, but the remainder of the list is dominated by NSW addresses including Epping, Mosman and West Ryde.
“Myfun” which sounds like the Mandarin expression for “buy property” is a househunting tool (owned by REA Group, the company behind realestate.com.au) for Chinese buyers seeking Australian real estate, whether they’re based overseas or already living here.
Ken Chen, selling agent with Harcourts in Melbourne, said the position of Glen Waverley as the most popular suburb in Australia for Chinese buyers was no big surprise.
“It’s not really news to anyone around here. It’s been a popular place for Chinese families to buy into for a while now,” he said.
Mr Chen, who recently sold a palatial pad in Lisbon St, Glen Waverley for $4.08 million to a Chinese buyer, said there were a number of reasons behind the suburb’s high demand.
“The good schools are one reason, but it is just convenient for families. Often you will have the husband still travelling to China for work and the wife and kids stay back in Melbourne. They want to have a nice family environment like Glen Waverley,” he said.
The hot suburb might be 27km east of Melbourne’s CBD but is near Wesley College and the Monash University’s Clayton campus.
According to realestate.com.au data, the current median four-bedroom house price in Glen Waverley is $1.238 million, up from $1.092 million at the same time last year.
While there are no hard and fast statistics on how many buyers from Chinese backgrounds are buying real estate in Sydney, selling agent Betty Ockerlander of McGrath Epping said she would estimate that 90 per cent of buyers in her area are from a Chinese background.
Epping, in Sydney’s northern suburbs, came in at number four on myfun.com’s national list, but is number one in NSW.
“It’s been a popular suburb for years and that’s partly got to do with the high-ranking schools in the neighbourhood. Plus now you’ve got Macquarie University and Macquarie Business Park nearby and that’s appealing to a lot of buyers,” she said.
With Epping proving to be so popular among Chinese and Chinese Australian buyers, Ms Ockerlander said she now has a team of Mandarin speaking agents working with her to handle demand.
“Sometimes at auction when things are moving fast I’ll have team members walking the crowd to make sure everyone understands where the bids are going,” she said.
“I also put ads in the Chinese papers, because although lots of buyers are looking on myfun.com there are lots of parents and grandparents who are househunting for their children and they might not be that tech savvy,” she said. “That way I’ve covered all bases, all age groups.”
THE TOP TEN SPOTS WHERE CHINESE BUYERS ARE HOUSEHUNTING
AUSTRALIA WIDE
Glen Waverley, Victoria
Doncaster, Victoria
Box Hill, Victoria
Epping, NSW
Mosman, NSW
West Ryde, NSW
Chatswood, NSW
Hurstville, NSW
Burwood, NSW
Toorak, Victoria
NEW SOUTH WALES
Epping
Mosman
West Ryde
Chatswood
Burwood
Hurstville
Hornsby
Killara
Lane Cove
Carlingford
VICTORIA
Glen Waverley
Doncaster
Box Hill
Toorak
Balwyn
Doncaster East
Balwyn North
Kew
Wheelers Hill
Carlton
QUEENSLAND
Southport
Sunnybank
Robina
Indooroopilly
Surfers Paradise
Tallai
Helensvale
New Farm
Hawthorne
Carindale
WESTERN AUSTRALIA
East Perth
Nedlands
Bayswater
Wembley
Fremantle
Highgate
Subiaco
Cottesloe
Swanbourne
Subiaco
TASMANIA
Kingston
Lilydale
Victoria Valley
Newstead
Sandy Bay
Tranmere
Rosetta
Sorell
Herdsmans Cove
Middleton
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Unley Park
Mannum
Walkerville
Port Hughes
Hallett Cove
Largs North
Cowell
Port Augusta West
Mount Barker Springs
North Adelaide
*NT and ACT didn’t produce a strong enough data set so have been excluded from the list.
[source :-realestate]