Chinese keen on buying property in Australia

As China's economy develops, more and more Chinese are investing in the real estate market, at home and abroad. This growing demand is boosting the property market in Australia. Our Sydney correspondent Hannah Belcher looks at why a home in Australia is so appealing.

This is what you call a luxury home on Sydney's highly sort-after Dover Heights, overlooking Bondi beach.

McGrath real estate's Stephen Chen is showing two potential Chinese clients around the property.

The Australian owner wants 7 and a half million dollars plus, and Stephen is confident he'll get his price.

"The Chinese buyer is an astute buyer, so they'll do their homework, they will do their research, but if they want that property they will pay the expected price," said Steven Chen, Project director, of McGrath Real Estate.

"China is currently the strongest growing investor in the Australian real estate market. Over the past six years the Chinese have bought more than 60 billion dollars worth of properties, from modest 500 hundred thousand dollar apartments to multi million dollar water-front homes like these, " Hannah Belcher said.

Real Estate companies like McGrath are doing everything they can to cater for the Chinese buyer - from Mandarin translated websites to Feng Shui experts, and setting up partnerships in China.

"There has been a surge in the last two or three years that we've seen, so we have a much greater cultural awareness, we've had seminars for our teams as to how do we service Asian origin buyers differently to perhaps our western buyers we've serviced in the past," said John Mcgrath, Founder and CEO of McGrath Real Estate

Australia's leading apartment developer Meriton claims that two years ago Chinese investors made up 60 percent of the buyers in some of their developments

So what's driving the wealthy middle class' appetite for Australian property? Economist Tim Harcourt says immigration and education.

"It's related very much to education, so the benefits to Australia, to our education sector, to our productivity are quite broad, it's not just speculative property financing," Economist Tim Harcourt said.

However, many Australians feel demand from wealthy Chinese investors is pushing house prices out of their reach.

"When you've got a country as big as China where most of the buyers are coming from, which would have as many multi millionaires as we have people that distorts our property market. And you've got to ask, what is a property market for? Is it for people speculating or is it for people to live in houses?" Debunking Economics Author Steven keen said.

Just last month Chinese buyers bought two prime water-front Sydney properties. This one, valued at 50 million dollars, made it onto page 2 of the Sydney Morning Herald. Considering soaring air pollution in China's major cities, it's easy to understand why an Australian home looks so appealing.