While locals are waiting out the property storm by staying closer to home, international buyers and renters are inspecting Australian properties in record numbers.
The Little Hinges Sight Unseen Report, which analysed over 300k digital inspections in April, has found that international buyer and renter inspections increased by half a percentage point each, with 6.8% of buyers and 8.9% of renters inspecting Australian property from outside our borders.
This equates to over 21,000 prospective immigrants inspecting property in Australia in April alone.
Little Hinges CMO, Mike York, said “we’re seeing an increase in the percentage of digital inspections being conducted by buyers and renters from overseas, as international travel and migration continues to become more accessible.
“The percentage of international buyers is the highest it’s been in the last 12 months, with cities like the Sunshine Coast and Sydney seeing up to 10% of inspections coming from overseas, including the US, UK and New Zealand.”
Domestically, 22.7% of buyers and 17.6% of renters are inspecting properties outside the city they live in, numbers that have remained steady after dropping in almost all major cities around Australia in March.
Mr York said, “Given the unexpected rate rise in May, we will likely see the percentage of interstate inspections, which is sitting at around 1 in 4, remain at these levels, as buyers and renters stick to the suburbs they know.
The regions with the highest percentage of interstate and international buyers remain consistent, with Queensland cities leading the pack.
In April, Brisbane saw an increase in buyer inspections from interstate, growing 3% to 21%. The Gold Coast also saw a 0.7% increase to 37.8%, and the Sunshine Coast remained steady at 30.5%.
Melbourne is seeing 18.4% of buyer inspections coming from outside the state, with almost 7% of buyers inspecting from overseas.
Renters continue to be drawn to Queensland, despite a drop in interstate rental inspections on the Gold Coast. Almost 30% of rental inspections on the Sunshine Coast are from interstate, with 18% of inspections from outside the state in both Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
Little Hinges analysed over 300,000 virtual inspections for the Sight Unseen reports released for April.
