VietNamNet Bridge - A Vietnamese corporation has reportedly spent $14 million at an auction to buy a shopping mall in the suburbs of Marrickville in Sydney, Australia, taking the first step in its plan to penetrate overseas markets.

Vietnamese spend more money to buy properties overseas

Some months before, another business acquired an apartment project on Racecourse street in Kensington in Melbourne in a deal worth $6 million.

Vietnamese businesses and individuals began looking for properties overseas some years ago. That has recently increased as the real estate price in Australia has fallen as a result of the Australian government’s moves to cool the market. 

European countries are also destinations that many Vietnamese investors are interested in, especially individuals who seek opportunities to get permanent residential cards.

One of the reasons is that they want to have homes for their children who study at prestigious schools in Europe, especially in France and Germany.

Duc Tien from Ironfish, a consultancy firm, said the demand of Vietnamese people for houses in Australia is relatively high. 

“Some people buy properties for their children. Others buy houses as an investment item and many people want to have second homes to stay when traveling abroad,” Tien said.

NAR (the national association of realtors) in the US last year reported that Vietnamese spent $3 billion in the time between April 2016 and March 2017 to buy houses in the US, which puts Vietnam among top 10 countries with the highest numbers of house buyers in the US.

According to Phoebe Huynh from Denzell Consultancy, Greece has also become one of the countries eyed by Vietnamese house buyers. 

Foreign citizens have many opportunities to get permanent residential cards in the country as the Greek government is calling for investments. The house prices in the country which has recovered from the crisis, are very reasonable, from VND6.8 billion, or 250,000 euros. 

“We have realized the increasingly high number of Vietnamese investors who seek to buy houses in Greece. There are more people from the north than the south,” she noted.

In 2016, Cosco, a Chinese transport firm that bought Pireus Port at the price of $311 million, is now controlling one of the most important seaports through which one can enter Europe. As such, to buy houses in Greece, Vietnamese will have to compete with Chinese.

A report from a real estate consultancy firm showed that Singapore remains the favorite destination, followed by Australia, Germany and the UK.

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