Shanghai crash arrives in Australian property

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From the AFR which clearly didn’t get the memo from Domain:

Andrew Fawell​, director of the Beller Group, a diversified property group with offices in Shanghai selling Australian property to Chinese investors, said there is anecdotal evidence some investments could be axed because buyers have suffered heavy losses on China’s bourses.

…Westpac, the largest lender to overseas investors, is clamping down on offshore investors wanting to buy residential property. Its broker distribution division is writing to mortgage brokers identified as having a “higher percentage” of property lending to people not resident in Australia and asking that future applicants have an Australian residential address.

Brokers claim it is targeting Chinese buyers, who have been spending billions on residential property, particularly in Melbourne and Sydney.

As I’ve said previously, I was at the coal face during the GFC when many committed foreign buyers of Australian realty suddenly evaporated and banks responded by tightening criteria for developers reliant upon this bid for their product.

While the Westpac move is mild, if the Shanghai bust is not arrested this will get much worse and because it can only be arrested via not letting anyone sell it’ll get worse anyway.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.