CHINESE buyers will this week descend on Melbourne for a property frenzy with the city’s outer suburbs and university precincts in their sights.

Chinese Lunar New Year is driving the influx with up to 125,000 Chinese nationals Melbourne-bound to celebrate the Golden Week holiday.

Chief executive of leading Chinese property website Juwai.com Carrie Law told the Sunday Herald Sun: “This may be the biggest week of the year for Chinese property buying in Melbourne.”

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Australia is the second favourite offshore investment destination for Chinese buyers, behind the United States, a recent Juwai.com survey of 256 consumers shows.

Point Cook, Clayton, Carlton and Glen Waverley are among the suburbs likely to be targeted, topping the state list for searches from China on realestate.com.au in the past six months.

Realestate.com.au chief economist Nerida Conisbee said suburbs around Melbourne’s top universities continued to draw strong interest.

“There’s still very much an education focus for Chinese buyers,” she said.

“They really continue to see educational institutions as aspirational locations and are looking close to Melbourne’s best universities, Melbourne Uni, Monash Uni, RMIT, but there’s also a growing awareness of what they can buy as well.

“Offshore buyers are restricted to only buying new and that initially meant that they focused very much on apartments, but house and land packages are coming up and Point Cook, at number one for searches, is an indication of what’s happening in that market.”

Founder and chief executive of business-to-business off the plan sales platform Investorist Jon Ellis said despite a fall in Chinese investment in Australia last year: “The sheer enormity of the Chinese population means there is always demand remaining.”

But he added a combination of factors had led to some perception the country had become “too hard” to buy in for Chinese residential property investors.

“These include increased state taxes, elimination of stamp duty exemptions for off the plan property in July 2017, and increased difficulty of obtaining loans for foreign nationals, all adding up to Chinese investors feeling less welcome in Australia than they have been previously,” he said.

“On top of that, the Chinese Government increased its capital controls in 2017 restricting the amount of Yuan citizens could take out of China each year, which also had an impact.”

Ms Law said any impact tighter restrictions had on the week, from February 15-21, would not be known until after the dust had settled.

“Early indicators suggest this Golden Week will be a successful one for real estate agents working with Chinese buyers,” she said.

“It’s a ‘golden week’ for the Chinese because they get a holiday. Will it also be golden for agents? We think so.”

TOP 10 SEARCHED VICTORIAN SUBURBS ON REALESTATE.COM.AU FROM CHINA

Point Cook, more than 2700

Clayton, more than 2400

Carlton, more than 2400

Glen Waverley, more than 2400

Box Hill, more than 2200

South Yarra, more than 1900

Docklands, more than 1600

Mt Waverley, more than 1500

Toorak, more than 1500

Balwyn, more than 1500

Source: realestate.com.au, six months to January 31

scott.carbines@news.com.au