Riding on the fall of the Australian dollar, Asian buyers are expected to boost apartment sales in Australia, where a bumper supply of new projects were launched recently.
“The weakening of the Australian dollar creates stronger buying power for foreign investors,” said Singapore-based William Young, Lend Lease’s regional sales director for Asia. This as foreign buyers look at the relative price of a property on a psf basis and compare it to their own countries.
Crown Group Chief Executive Officer Iwan Sunito agreed, saying: “Definitely, the recent 10 percent fall in our exchange rate helps marketing in Asia.” He was in Jakarta for the launch of Skye by Crown in North Sydney.
A currency correction of this level could take about three months before translating into sales, according to Mathew Cassidy, Queensland Manager for Project Marketing at Knight Frank.
“Those who are looking now may jump at the opportunity to lock in contracts at the current exchange rate – but only after they have gone through methodical due diligence,” he added.
For the past year, Asian buyers mainly from Hong Kong, China and Singapore have purchased approximately A$400 million (S$463 million) worth of units in southeast Queensland. However, sales have slowed down in the last six months due to uncertainty over the US dollar and Euro, Cassidy said.
Nevertheless, sales will be stronger in the second half of 2013 and “will do better this year than last year”, he noted.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
Related Stories:
Dubai property prices up
Sales of yet-to-be-built US homes surge