This is where Chinese buyers want to live down under

Victorian suburbs Doncaster and Box Hill rounded out the top three, but the remainder of the list is dominated by NSW addresses including Epping, Mosman and West Ryde.

“Myfun” which sounds like the Mandarin expression for “buy property” is a househunting tool (owned by REA Group, the company behind realestate.com.au) for Chinese buyers seeking Australian real estate, whether they’re based overseas or already living here.

Ken Chen, selling agent with Harcourts in Melbourne, said the position of Glen Waverley as the most popular suburb in Australia for Chinese buyers was no big surprise.

“It’s not really news to anyone around here. It’s been a popular place for Chinese families to buy into for a while now,” he said.

Mr Chen, who recently sold a palatial pad in Lisbon St, Glen Waverley for $4.08 million to a Chinese buyer, said there were a number of reasons behind the suburb’s high demand.

“The good schools are one reason, but it is just convenient for families. Often you will have the husband still travelling to China for work and the wife and kids stay back in Melbourne. They want to have a nice family environment like Glen Waverley,” he said.

The hot suburb might be 27km east of Melbourne’s CBD but is near Wesley College and the Monash University’s Clayton campus.

According to realestate.com.au data, the current median four-bedroom house price in Glen Waverley is $1.238 million, up from $1.092 million at the same time last year.

While there are no hard and fast statistics on how many buyers from Chinese backgrounds are buying real estate in Sydney, selling agent Betty Ockerlander of McGrath Epping said she would estimate that 90 per cent of buyers in her area are from a Chinese background.

Epping, in Sydney’s northern suburbs, came in at number four on myfun.com’s national list, but is number one in NSW.

This humble looking Epping home fetched $1.92 million recently at auction.

“It’s been a popular suburb for years and that’s partly got to do with the high-ranking schools in the neighbourhood. Plus now you’ve got Macquarie University and Macquarie Business Park nearby and that’s appealing to a lot of buyers,” she said.

With Epping proving to be so popular among Chinese and Chinese Australian buyers, Ms Ockerlander said she now has a team of Mandarin speaking agents working with her to handle demand.

“Sometimes at auction when things are moving fast I’ll have team members walking the crowd to make sure everyone understands where the bids are going,” she said.

“I also put ads in the Chinese papers, because although lots of buyers are looking on myfun.com there are lots of parents and grandparents who are househunting for their children and they might not be that tech savvy,” she said. “That way I’ve covered all bases, all age groups.”

THE TOP TEN SPOTS WHERE CHINESE BUYERS ARE HOUSEHUNTING

AUSTRALIA WIDE

Glen Waverley, Victoria

Doncaster, Victoria

Box Hill, Victoria

Epping, NSW

Mosman, NSW

West Ryde, NSW

Chatswood, NSW

Hurstville, NSW

Burwood, NSW

Toorak, Victoria

NEW SOUTH WALES

Epping

Mosman

West Ryde

Chatswood

Burwood

Hurstville

Hornsby

Killara

Lane Cove

Carlingford

VICTORIA

Glen Waverley

Doncaster

Box Hill

Toorak

Balwyn

Doncaster East

Balwyn North

Kew

Wheelers Hill

Carlton

QUEENSLAND

Southport

Sunnybank

Robina

Indooroopilly

Surfers Paradise

Tallai

Helensvale

New Farm

Hawthorne

Carindale

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

East Perth

Nedlands

Bayswater

Wembley

Fremantle

Highgate

Subiaco

Cottesloe

Swanbourne

Subiaco

TASMANIA

Kingston

Lilydale

Victoria Valley

Newstead

Sandy Bay

Tranmere

Rosetta

Sorell

Herdsmans Cove

Middleton

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Unley Park

Mannum

Walkerville

Port Hughes

Hallett Cove

Largs North

Cowell

Port Augusta West

Mount Barker Springs

North Adelaide

*NT and ACT didn’t produce a strong enough data set so have been excluded from the list.

(Source from realestate.com.au)