Year of the Goat/Sheep: He Said/She Said
Chinese New Year falls later than usual this year, so the journeys of Asian residents coming to Australia to visit family and friends have only just begun for the year.
No doubt property purchasing will ensue - and with the dollar hovering at around 78 US cents, why wouldn’t it?
Our contrarian commentators, Jonathan Chancellor and Margie Blok, agree that the well established patterns of the Chinese buying property in Australia will continue during 2015, while noting that a buyer from China topped the 2014 residential sale prices in Sydney with the $39 million sale of Point Piper’s Villa Del Mare by Golden Fast Foods Pty Ltd.
The Golden Fast Foods Pty Ltd paper trail led to the Chinese billionaire, Xu Jiayin, chairman of Evergrande, an integrated corporation specialised in residential building, cultural tourism, FMCG, agriculture, dairy, livestock farming and sport industry with 460 billion yuan worth of total assets and 80 thousand employees. Sky tracking websites showed that Xu Jaiyin, aged 56, was in Australia around the time of the early October 2014 sale, having arrived with a team of 25 in his private Airbus A319.
It was the second year running a buyer from China purchased the top-priced Sydney property. In 2013 Point Piper’s Altona topped the Sydney house price sale list following its $52 million sale to the Huang family through Alison Coopes.
While our commentators concur on the continuing trend of Chinese buying Australian real estate, they disagree on the animal name of the 2105 Chinese lunar year beginning on 19 February.
HE SAID:
It’s year of the sheep (which is what Qantas is calling it). Enough said.
SHE SAID:
It’s year of the goat. The airline Cathay Pacific sent an email referring to the year of the goat – and they should know.
Many China websites, including Time Out Shanghai, also refer to the 2015 Spring Festival holiday for Chinese New Year of the Goat.
No doubt Jonathan, the billionaire spotter, envisages a high-faluting merino with ultra fine wool – perhaps of Haddon Rig pedigree. Sometimes he really gets my goat, but on this occasion I won’t let him.
