How more than A THIRD of the most expensive homes in Australia are bought by Chinese entrepreneurs

How more than A THIRD of the most expensive homes in Australia are bought by super rich Chinese entrepreneurs

  • Australia’s most expensive property was sold to a Chinese investor for $140m
  • Other apartments in the building also sold for about $40m to foreign buyers 
  • One quarter of Chinese tourists visiting Australia are looking to buy property

One third of the most expensive homes in Australia have been scooped up by wealthy Chinese investors.

Thirty per cent of multi-million dollar mansions and penthouses around the country are owned by buyers from mainland China and Hong Kong, including coveted areas in Sydney and Melbourne, reported The Australian.

One luxury home in Sydney Harbour’s Fairwater estate went to a foreign investor for $100m and a mansion in Melbourne’s ritzy Toorak was snapped up for $26.25m.

But the nation’s most expensive home eclipsed previous figures after a mystery Chinese-born entrepreneur paid $140m last month for a Barangaroo South penthouse that hasn’t been built yet.

An artists’s impression of Barangaroo South property that hasn’t been built yet

An artist's impression of one of the many rooms in a Barangaroo South property that was sold for $140m

An artist’s impression of one of the many rooms in a Barangaroo South property that was sold for $140m

Once completed in 2023, the buyer will use the top two-storey penthouse as their home and the sub-penthouse as a separate living quarter.

Spanning 1,600 square metres, nine-bedroom home features a master bedroom that is the same size as a small city apartment.

The tower’s agents said many of the apartments have sold for around $40m to Chinese-born nationals.

The sale comes after billionaire developer Phillip Dong Fang Lee bought a Point Piper mansion for $39.9 in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs.

Sydney Harbour's Fairwater estate went to a foreign investor for $100m

Sydney Harbour’s Fairwater estate went to a foreign investor for $100m

James Packer’s former Vaucluse abode sold in 2015 to Chinese-born Chau Chak Wing for $70m.

While the federal government placed new taxes on foreign investors, migration agent John Hu said Hong Kong nationals have expressed 50 per cent more interest in Australian properties since civil unrest began in June.

‘For enquiries, we are reaching about 1,000 a month and they are asking for different countries and of course Australia is on the top of the list.’ 

About 1.2 million Chinese tourists visit Australia every year.

According to Chinese property portal Juwai, a quarter of them are looking to buy property.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk