Chinese Buyers Flood Australian Housing Market For New Year

Chinese New Year creates frenzy at Sydney auctions

"It is an absolute feeding frenzy right now and shows no sign of waning," he said.

The period leading up to and just after Chinese New Year is considered a lucky time to purchase a home. And Sydney's red-hot property market fuelled by record low interest rates and the low Australian dollar are proving added incentives for many Chinese buyers, both those who live here and those who have flown over from China to visit friends and family.

...Such is the surge in interest from mainland China that some agents advise their clients to time the sale for the lunar new year period.

"If you can take advantage of that [Chinese New Year] then you will most likely have more buyers at that time, especially the ones who come from overseas," said Leon Chung, sales manager at Loyal Property in Chatswood.

Are auctions the traditional way of selling homes in Australia, or is this a sign of the bubble?

From 2013: Australia Turns to Auctions as Housing Revives: Mortgages

Australians selling properties are increasingly turning to auctions as interest rates matching the lowest in 50 years fuel demand for homes in the country’s largest cities.

...Unlike in the U.S., where auctions are frequently used to dispose of distressed properties, home sellers in Australia are more likely to try them when the market is strengthening and there’s the prospect of higher prices, a probability that’s growing after the Reserve Bank of Australia cut rates to a half-century low.

How much is the land in the Outback? Get the Chinese to pay for a giant infrastructure project to carve a huge canal into the center of Australia, desalinate the water and then sell the land to the Chinese. Everyone in Australia can become rich and move to New Zealand.

If it works, repeat it in Arizona.

iFeng: 华人春节高调涌入澳洲房市 当地市场库存不足