Are Chinese really to blame for Australia’s high house prices?
Property has boomed in Sydney and Melbourne alongside foreign investment, but – despite public sentiment – there’s no clear evidence the two things are linked
Housing affordability, or the lack thereof, is a constant water-cooler topic in Australia. It makes its way into the collective consciousness regularly, through myriad avenues and the culprits earmarked for blame are a many and varied bunch.
Baby boomers have blamed expensive smashed avocado brunches for millennials’ inability to save a 10 per cent deposit, while hipsters have blamed greedy baby boomers investing in second and third homes.
Yet the latest received wisdom doing the rounds is that the spike in prices is not the fault of Aussies at all, but of Chinese investors.
A report released this month, based on a sample of 900 Sydney residents, found only 18 per cent were in favour of foreign investment into real estate – and by “foreign”, judging from the media’s reaction, they meant “Chinese”. The report, by Dr Dallas Rogers at the University of Sydney and published in journal Australian Geographer, comes after consistent media reports blaming Chinese investors for pushing house prices to their current sky-high levels – the median house price in Sydney is now hovering at just under A$1 million (HK$5.8 million) and A$800,000 in Melbourne, where prices have risen 47 per cent in the past four years, according to Moody’s Analytics. There have been reports of anti-Chinese newsletters circulating in Sydney, where house prices rose 45 per cent between 2012 and 2015 – roughly coinciding with a boom in Chinese investment that increased 900 per cent between 2009 and 2015.
What avocados have to do with housing crises from Australia to Hong Kong
Meanwhile, reports regarding the Chinese government’s pursuit of corruption suspects abroad, Operation Skynet, have raised eyebrows given that 10 of the suspects are thought to be living in Australia.