Depressed and ripped-off: How Australia's deepening rental crisis is impacting international studentsVietnamese student, Linh Vu, is in her second year at Monash University. In February, she moved into an apartment which her parents bought for her last year.
“I just video call with them and showed them the videos of the house and then they said 'OK. Just go ahead'.” Overseas homebuyers in Australia may incur additional costs beyond the purchase price of the property.According to the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act , overseas buyers must apply for approval from the FIRB before purchasing a property in Australia, and the application fee varies depending on the price of the purchased property.for a residential property worth $1 million or less increased to $14,100 from 1 July 2023.
However, Mark Humphery-Jenner, associate professor of Finance at UNSW, reminds potential overseas investors to consider risk in identifying which properties to buy and whether the asset is good value. Industry insider, Victor Wu, says foreign investor interest in the Australian real estate market is picking up.The enthusiasm of Chinese buyers to invest in the Australian housing market is undiminished.“We sell five to six properties per month to Chinese overseas buyers on average since reopened this year,” he adds.
“There are many young people who cannot afford to buy a place due to the high price,” Dr Song Shi, associate professor in real estate at the School of Built Environment at the University of Technology Sydney, says.