“The Chinese will pay over the odds for single dwellings,” he said. These will serve as the family home with their children attending prestige nearby schools like Scotch College.
Mr Bragilevsky explained how he would typically help a Chinese buyer looking for a luxury home.
“They come to Melbourne on a private jet, and I’ll meet them at the airport with a nice car. Then we go out and look at real estate,” he said.
The Whernside Avenue home sold by the Alfasis for $33.5m. Eamon Gallagher
In one instance, a Chinese buyer brought along a Feng Shui master to inspect a property on Irvine Road, Toorak.
“It’s considered bad luck if a home slopes down from front to back – you have to cater to all their needs,” he said.
“I offer a personalised service. I try to get to know them. A lot of them made their money from manufacturing or from real estate in China.”
If a buyer liked a home, they would write a cheque for the deposit on the spot, Mr Bragilevsky explained.
“The biggest problem they have is getting money out of China. A lot of them are going through Hong Kong, They have to be very creative to funnel the money out of China” Mr Bragilevsky said.
The conclusion of a successful transaction would instil confidence and build a relationship which would then result in repeat business, including selling assets on behalf of Chinese owners, he said.
Buyers’ agent Alex Bragilevsky at his home in Caulfield. Wayne Taylor
Mirroring what Sydney agents told The Australian Financial Review about Chinese appetite for prestige harbourside homes in suburbs like Point Piper and Vaucluse, Mr Bragilevsky said he had 10-15 buyers looking to pay cash for homes in Toorak and other blue-chip Melbourne suburbs.
“Established properties between $10 million and $30 million seem to be the sweet spot for highly fastidious and educated buyers in the premium market,” Mr Bragilevsky said.
“Many are shying away from taking a gamble on construction pricing fluctuations and time delays in the delivery [of new or renovated] high-end homes.”
“In saying that, over the past three months demand for land in triple-A streets of Toorak has swelled with per-square-metre rates continuously being toppled.”
Mr Bragilevsky added that he also had Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese purchasers with budgets of between $30 million and $80 million, but with almost no stock availability at this price point.
“I’m currently working on multiple deals off market between $20 million and $50 million, all of which should be closed before Christmas,” he said.
Driving all this resurgence – and borne out in Treasury’s June quarter foreign investment report – is a confluence of tailwinds including the reopening of international borders, a surge in overseas migration into Australia (NSW and Victoria accounted for the bulk of the 454,400 of net migration numbers), a crackdown on the ultra rich in China and the faltering Chinese property market, which is encouraging more Chinese to look for opportunities abroad.
The Treasury data revealed Chinese buyers received approval for $3.4 billion of residential property purchases over the 12 months to June 2023, a 42 per cent increase on the $2.4 billion approved in the prior financial year. Hong Kong ($600 million) and Vietnam ($400 million) were the next biggest foreign buyers of residential property last financial year.
Alongside this report, NAB’s latest Residential Property Survey of property professionals released last month found that in the established housing markets, the share of foreign buyer sales rose to a four-year high of 4.1 per cent in the September quarter.
Sales to foreign buyers increased in all states led by Victoria, which has the largest local Chinese population, where one in 20 sales was to an overseas buyer.
Another Melbourne buyer’s agent specialising in mansions sales, David Morrell, echoed Mr Bragilevsky’s view about the strength of the Chinese buyer market.
“They’re coming here in busloads,” Mr Morrell said.
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