Prior Group - Russia - New Zealand - Новая Зеландия - Россия

27 Feb 2010 - The Australian - Chinese and Russians are running neck and neck as the biggest foreign buyers of residential property on Queensland's Gold Coast. Last year, Chinese buyers finalised deals for $22.76 million of houses and apartments, while buyers from the Russian Federation signed for $22.7m of Gold Coast homes.
Global real estate adviser DTZ's Queensland project marketing director, Paul Barratt, said Russian buyers had been virtually non-existent in the Queensland property market 10 years ago. Russia's increasing wealth from oil and mining, combined with Australian developers specifically targeting Russian buyers through roadshows in Moscow, had seen this nationality emerge as one of the biggest foreign buying groups of the past four years. In the 2006-07 financial year, Russians bought 64 Gold Coast properties, totalling $35m.

Sydney-based Yan Orlievsky has flown to Russia 21 times in the past four years brokering deals for Russians to buy Australian property and other investments, and sometimes vice versa.
Mr Orlievsky, who is a director of Moss Capital -- the boutique advisory and investment group founded by former Macquarie Group property head Bill Moss -- said the collapse of the Dubai property bubble was sending Russian capital looking for safe-haven markets.
``And Australia has always been a romantic notion to Russians,'' he said. ``It's a little bit of prestige, to have an Australian investment.
``Russia has a growing middle class. It's cash- and investment-driven, not debt-driven.''
Last year, Russians spent more on individual homes than Chinese buyers, with an average purchase price of $516,000, compared with $446,000 for Chinese citizens.
But Chinese buyers have also become a force. Australia's biggest apartment developer, Harry Triguboff, told The Weekend Australian this week the proportion of Chinese buyers in some locations could be as high as 60 per cent.
``I would estimate that around $200 million of my sales come from buyers from China each year,'' said Mr Triguboff, whose company, Meriton, has built thousands of apartments in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
DTZ's Mr Barratt said there had also been an increase in the number of South African buyers across Queensland in the past two years.
Australian developers had targeted South African investors keen to invest their spiralling rand in robust economies, he said.
Mr Barratt said while only 1 per cent of Queensland's residential property was sold to foreign buyers, changes introduced in late 2008 by the Foreign Investment Review Board allowing 100 per cent of a new residential project to be sold to offshore buyers, meant this could change.
Foreigners could previously purchase only up to 50 per cent of a new development. It was too early to see the impact, given many new projects had stalled in the wake of the global financial crisis, Mr Barratt said.
However, banks were unlikely to lend to developers who sold more than 50 per cent to offshore buyers, in case of defaults, he said.
On the Gold Coast, Russians bought multi-million-dollar homes in the wealthy enclave of Sovereign Islands and in the developer Sunland's apartment towers, Q1 and Circle on Cavill.
In the Circle on Cavill apartment buildings at Surfers Paradise, Russians are the biggest offshore owners, with 29 of the 641 apartments.
Owners from Singapore, China and Malaysia are the next biggest international owners. Australians are by far the biggest group of owners, with 439 of the apartments.

Foreign investment in Gold Coast residential property in 2009

China ................ $22.7m

Russia ............... $22.7m

Japan ................ $20.5m

Singapore .......... $16.3m

New Caledonia ... $14.8m

South Africa ....... $13.9m

Malaysia ............ $13m

New Zealand ...... $11.3m

UK .................... $9.6m

South Korea ....... $4.3m

US .................... $4.4m

Other ................. $19.9m

A case in point:

Surfers Paradise Who owns what in the Circle on Cavill apartment towers

AAA = Source of building sales on completion

BBB = Number of sales

AAA ...................... BBB

Qld ....................... 216

NSW ..................... 135

Vic ........................ 55

Russia .................. 29

Singapore .............. 24

China .................... 19

Malaysia ............... 19

US ........................ 19

WA ....................... 16

New Zealand .......... 15

Britain ................... 12

Japan .................... 9

Other in Australia ... 17

Other countries ...... 56

TOTAL .................. 641

DTZ Research, RP Data