Melbourne hayseed mines for Chinese land grab gold

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Via the AFR:

A Melbourne family is set for a cash bonanza with a 153-hectare farm on the city’s northern fringe tipped to sell to developers for more than $100 million.

The elongated site at 750 Craigieburn Road East, 23 kilometres north of the Melbourne CBD and within the Urban Growth Zone, includes 97 hectares of developable area with the potential to yield 1700 residential lots.

Greenfield land prices in Melbourne have surged above $1 million a hectare in recent times amid competition among Asian developers and local players looking to extend their land banks in the hottest market conditions seen in years.

Recently, Chinese giant Country Garden agreed to purchase a 363-hectare site in Melbourne’s west from ASX-listed property group Phileo Australia for a record $400 million, while last year another Chinese group, Dahua paid $360 million for three sites near Point Cook.

This precisely the kind of transaction we should see disappear in the near future with China’s new capital export rules for realty.

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.