Chinese lead foreign buyers who snap up one in 10 NSW property sales

New figures showed foreign buyers account for 11 percent of all NSW property purchases.

Figures released under Freedom of Information laws from the NSW Office of State Revenue show that foreign nationals accounted for 11 percent of the 28,141 residential homes purchased in NSW from July to September last year.

Chinese purchased over 32 percent of the properties, followed by British and New Zealanders at 10 percent each and Indians at 6 percent. 

The figures came after the NSW government imposed a four percent surcharge on stamp duty for property purchases by foreigners along with a 0.75 percent land tax surcharge.

The NSW Opposition obtained the information and today called on the NSW government to raise property taxes for foreign buyers.

They suggest lifting the surcharge on stamp duty to 7 percent and lifting the annual land tax surcharge from the current level to1.5 percent which would bring NSW into line with the surcharges imposed by Victoria last year.

ALP leader Luke Foley said lifting property taxes on foreign investors would ease the pressure on first home buyers who the figures show now account for just 7.5 percent of total sales.

The Office of State Revenue figures show that foreigners now account for about 15 percent of the state duty paid in the period, much more than their share of purchases which suggests the stamp duty surcharge is raising considerable revenue.

The figures show buyers from Nepal and Malaysia (at 3 per cent) followed then purchasers from Korea, Vietnam, the US and Indonesia (2 per cent).

Over a three-month ­period last year, 2995 properties were sold to foreign buyers, raising $115 million in stamp duty. By comparison, $766 million in stamp duty was paid by Australian nationals in the same period, the Daily Telegraph reportedly exclusively.

Under the foreign duty surcharge at present, a buyer paying stamp duty on a property worth $2 million would have to pay $95,490 plus 4 per cent on the $2 million, which would be an extra $80,000.