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International searches for Australian properties increased exponentially in July, largely due to a swell of attention from US residents.
Data firm PropTrack has analysed search traffic on realestate.com.au to reveal that July 2024 experienced a 9 per cent month-on-month increase in searches from overseas for Australian properties to buy, and a 3 per cent increase over the year, with queries from the US increasing by 51 per cent over the past 12 months.
The UK, Singapore and India also increased their activity, though at lesser levels.
For rental properties, searches were also elevated, rising by 8 per cent compared to the previous month, though from a 12-month perspective they actually decreased by 1 per cent.
PropTrack senior data analyst Karen Dellow attributed the spike in attention from the US to the nation’s current political climate, with an election looming in November and several political occurrences causing unease throughout the month of July.
“It is common to see a spike in searches from overseas when there is political or economic turmoil in other countries,” Dellow said, noting that 2019 brought a sharp increase in searches from Hong Kong, while searches also rose at the start of the pandemic.
While the company did not have data to identify whether the searchers were from Australian citizens or foreign nationals, Dellow said it was more likely that the bulk of the interest coming from US shores could be attributed to Australians considering a move home.
She added that events within the country would likely have a big impact on whether this level of attention was sustained.
“The increase in searches from the United States came at the time when polls suggested Donald Trump was favoured to win the election and it remains to be seen whether the change in the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party will have an impact on searches in the coming months,” she noted.
In terms of the locations that they were eying, PropTrack’s data showed that capital cities, alongside the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, received the most attention from overseas searchers overall, with US and UK property hunters highly favouring inner-city suburbs as well as beachside hotspots like Manly in Sydney, and Brighton and Fremantle in Melbourne.
Searchers hailing from China and Hong Kong, meanwhile, predominantly focused their sights on buying houses in suburbs with high Chinese populations, such as the Melbourne communities of Balwyn, Glen Waverley and Box Hill.
Renters from Hong Kong and China, however, tended to focus more on the inner city, with a preference for the Sydney suburbs of Zetland, Chippendale and Waterloo.
Buyers from India gravitated towards suburbs with a lot of new development – perhaps due to the restrictions and tax settings surrounding the purchase of property by foreign nationals – with areas like Tarneit and Point Cook high on their list.
Renters from India instead looked at CBD areas as well as Clayton, in close proximity to Monash University, suggesting many of the prospective tenants are students.
According to Dellow, the search data backs up the supposition that many of the rental searchers are coming to Australia for educational reasons, given that rental searches from overseas peak in the first few months of the year – when universities begin their sessions.
This may also be the reason why rental searches over the past 12 months have fallen below the rates seen last year, as there has been a slight decrease in arrivals on work and student visas in the most recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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