Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Australian real estate had a taste of the late 1980s to it in 2023 as Japanese investors poured funds into the sector, buoyed by the East Asian country’s relatively low interest rates and the attractiveness of Australia’s build-to-rent (BTR) sector.
The latest CBRE’s Australia Capital Flows report found Japanese buyers acquired more than $2 billion in Australian real estate assets last year, well up on the $140 million invested in 2022.
This placed the country ahead of last year’s leading source of foreign real estate investment, North America, as well as Singapore and Hong Kong which were second and third placed respectively in 2022.
The sharp rise in Japan’s presence was in contrast to a 17 per cent decline for North American investment to $1.6 billion, and a 65 per cent drop in Singaporean investment to $1 billion, which was also a similar level to inflows from Hong Kong.