New Zealand dominates foreign interest in Australian property

PHOTO: New Zealand has leapfrogged over the United States as the international location with the most interest in Australian real estate.

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Australia’s pacific neighbour took out the top spot in 2021 as the country with the largest yearly increase in searches for property on realestate.com.au – up 37 per cent.

The influx of demand for Australian property from the land of the long white cloud correlated with the mid-year opening of the trans-Tasman bubble.

Kiwis were searching overwhelmingly for property in Queensland, with queries for the Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast taking out the top three locations with the most interest from New Zealand. Melbourne was also on their radar, taking out the number four spot, with Cairns coming in at number five.

And among the top six countries with the greatest interest in Australia, the most desired suburbs and regions have remained the same over the course of 2021, although the Gold Coast and Brisbane jumped up in the rankings.

Interest in the Australian market from the United States, which formerly dominated searches, dropped 28 per cent from 2020 to 2021.

Searches from China jumped into second place, with a 13 per cent surge in interest year-over-year.

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The United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Singapore dropped back 8 per cent, 21 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively.

But the nation’s overall interest from international locations for property purchases, while starting on a high, suffered through the year of continued lockdowns and border closures.

As 2021 progressed, searches for properties to buy on realestate.com.au began to slow and experienced a -9.19 per cent year-on-year decrease in December.

Searches for rental properties, however, showed growth, with a 15.06 per cent year-on-year increase, helped largely by an upward trend that began in October.