Australians overwhelmingly support a crackdown on Chinese investors buying real estate amid growing concerns over housing affordability, a new survey has found.
Eighty-three per cent of Australians believe the government “should restrict the amount of investment in residential real estate that is permitted from Chinese investors”, according to the poll published last week by the University of Technology Sydney’s Australia-China Relations Institute.
That was the highest number in the four years the UTS:ACRI survey has been running.
“Chinese investment in Australian residential real estate continues to generate concern,” the authors wrote in the report, The Australia-China relationship: What do Australians think?.
The poll asked a representative sample of 2015 Australian adults a range of questions on issues ranging from national security — including foreign interference and the conflict over Taiwan — to tourism, trade and investment.
Only 28 per cent of respondents agreed that “Chinese investment in Australian residential real estate brings a lot of benefits for Australians” such as housing construction, new dwellings and jobs.
“Agreement with this statement has incrementally decreased over the last four years,” the report said.
A “clear majority” of 80 per cent of Australians agreed with the statement that “foreign buyers from China drive up Australian housing prices”, a seven-point increase from 73 per cent in 2023, and almost back to the 82 per cent high recorded in 2021.
Just under three quarters, or 74 per cent, said Chinese investors “have negatively affected the rental market for residential real estate in Australia”, also a four-year high and a six-point increase from 68 per cent in 2023.
The housing crisis shows no signs of easing. Picture: David Swift/NCA NewsWire
More broadly, just under three quarters of respondents said Australia was “too economically reliant on China”, while just over half said foreign investment from China was “more detrimental than beneficial”.
David Ho, co-founder and group managing director of Asian property portal Juwai IQI, said the findings showed Australians were “stressed by the tight property market and believe foreign buyers are part of the problem”.
“They want foreign buyers to be restricted, regulated, and taxed, and that’s fine — because foreign buyers already in fact are heavily taxed, regulated, and restricted,” he said.
(news.com.au)