The Foreign Investment Review Board has released its Annual Report for 2013-14.
The number of foreign buyers of new Australian homes tripled last financial year, the Foreign Investment Review Board's annual report shows. FIRB has released its Annual Report for 2013-14 which shows a significant increase in both the number and value of approved foreign investments in Australia, with the total spend on off-the-plan apartments growing from $5.73 billion to $16.4 billion.
The number of approved residential real estate proposals has almost doubled from 11,668 to 23,054 in 2013-14. Proposed investment in residential real estate increased to $34.7 billion, up from $17.2 billion.
Commercial real estate also increased to $39.9 billion from $34.8 billion. By contrast approved business investment (non-real estate) in 2013-14 was $92.8 billion, an increase of 10.7 per cent. Foreign investment approvals in the services sector (excluding tourism) more than doubled to $53.4 billion and was the largest non-real estate sector for investment by value.
For the first time China ($27.7 billion) was the largest source country for approved investment, overtaking the United States ($17.5 billion). Other major source countries of investment were Canada ($15.4 billion), Malaysia ($7.2 billion) and Singapore ($7.1 billion).