Flush with savings accumulated during the pandemic and free to travel internationally again, Chinese people are flocking to Australia determined to buy property, according to local agents who are seeing twice or three times as many enquiries from Chinese buyers as in previous years.

“So far this year, Australia is the favourite country for Chinese buyers of overseas real estate, a dramatic improvement from its third-place ranking in 2021,” said Daniel Ho, co-founder and group managing director of property-tech firm Juwai IQI. “Buyer enquiries in the first three months are 127 per cent higher than in the prior quarter.”

The increase in Chinese buyers, both Australian residents and foreign-resident buyers, is obvious to Peter Li, general manager of the Sydney and Shanghai real estate agency Plus Agency.

“The number of Chinese buyers, conservatively, has tripled since this time last year,” he said. “In certain areas like [north-shore Sydney suburb] Chatswood, it has gone up by 500 per cent. When we do an open-for-inspection, last year we might have had one or two Chinese come through, while this year I’ll have five or 10.”

Mainland Chinese buyers are looking for property both for investment purposes and, increasingly, to occupy, agents and analysts said.