Immigrants are underpinning Melbourne's land boom: Oliver Hume
Immigrants are underpinning Australia's largest house and land market, Oliver Hume research suggests.
"Any cut to immigration would have a negative momentum in the market," Oliver Hume head of research George Bougias has said.
Oliver Hume's latest national land market report shows that Melbourne's rising prices are encouraging a larger proportion of Indian-born Australians, who have been overwhelmingly based in Melbourne, to go to Queensland.
"What we're seeing now is that 10 per cent of our buyers in Queensland are Indian-born," Mr Bougias said.
"South-east Queensland is becoming more like Melbourne and Sydney in some respects – from employment, whether professional or white-collar workers. Queensland today is very different to what it was 20 years ago."
The report found more than 65 per cent of second-quarter greenfield land sales in Melbourne to buyers born outside Australia.
The proportion has come back from its peak of 77 per cent last year, Bougias told Fairfax Media, who noted broadening in the type of buyers, including owner-occupier and downsizers, was occurring in the largest trend in greenfields buyers – Indian-born immigrants.
