Chinese property investors are shifting their focus from Australia to the UK as market regulators increase pressure on banks to curb foreign lending, in an attempt to moderate rapidly rising prices.
In 2016, and in an effort to curb the rising property prices in Australia, four major domestic banks have decided to stop lending to non-resident borrowers with no domestic income. The decision came as a shock at a time when Australia’s construction industry was booming and being funded (by and large) by Chinese money. The banks said at the time that they wanted to make home-owner purchases easier at a time when off-plan Chinese purchases were pushing the price of apartments ever up.Foreign investment in the UK is at an unprecedented high (helped in no small measure by the still languishing pound). Chinese money is funding much of the construction our cities continue to enjoy. The Australian clampdown will no doubt continue to divert money into the construction industry which is a wave we cannot afford not to ride when our friends look thinner on the ground than ever.
