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Transactions from overseas buyers surged over the 2022–23 financial year, a report from the ATO has found.
The Register of foreign ownership of residential land report released by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has found there were 5,360 residential real estate purchases with a level of foreign ownership from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023.
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The total value of these purchase transactions was $4.9 billion, with the number of transactions increasing by 27 per cent compared to the previous year.
Sale transactions lagged far behind purchases during this period, with 1,119 transactions at a total value of $1 billion.
Victoria, NSW, and Queensland represented 82.7 per cent of the total value of purchase transactions and 74.9 per cent of all purchase transactions, according to the report.
Juwai IQI co-founder and group managing director Daniel Ho commented: “The 27 per cent increase in buying last year shows that overseas buyers were bouncing back after the travel slowdown during the pandemic.
“The number of offshore buyers in New South Wales was flat, and actually decreased by 1 per cent, from 664 to 656.
“Meanwhile, the number of buyers in Queensland and Victoria jumped. The number of buyers in Queensland climbed 17 per cent, while the number of buyers in Victoria jumped 32 per cent, by about a third.
“This is the second consecutive year that more foreign buyers purchased in Queensland than in New South Wales.”
The report further revealed that new dwellings represented 49.3 per cent of purchase transactions, followed by 34 per cent for established dwellings. This was down on FY21–22 from 52.1 per cent and 31.7 per cent, respectively.
Meanwhile, vacant land purchases accounted for 16.7 per cent of total purchases, slightly up from the previous year’s figure of 16.2 per cent.
According to Ho, the increase in foreign buyers is not a phenomenon unique to Australia.
He continued: “…we see the same thing happening in the US, Canada, Europe, and the UK. There is a significant wave of post-COVID-19 migration as people act on plans they had to put on hold during the pandemic.
“We also see it in Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, which have seen rapid intake of their golden visa programs since the pandemic.
“If the Australian government succeeds in reducing the number of foreign students and other migrants coming to the country, we can expect foreign buying to be affected.”
Indeed, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton recently outlined measures the Coalition Party would introduce should they gain power in the next election in order to meet the “housing crisis head-on”.
The measures Dutton outlined almost exclusively targeted foreign investors and migration, which included a two-year ban on foreign investors and temporary residents purchasing existing homes in Australia along with reducing the number of foreign students studying in metropolitan universities in an effort to alleviate stress on major city rental markets.
[RELATED: Dutton hits back at Labor’s housing plans]
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