According to a survey of international real estate professionals completed recently by Juwai.com, Australian agents know less about Chinese buyers than most of our overseas counterparts.
How would you go if you were asked the tough questions?
- 84.1% of Australian real estate professionals correctly guessed the Chinese flag. The most common mistake was to choose the Vietnamese flag, which was incorrectly chosen by 11.7% of Australian respondents.
- 77% of Australian real estate professionals correctly named Xi Jing Ping as president of China. However, 14% incorrectly guessed Hu Jing Tao, and a combined 9% selected Kim Jong Un or Mao Ze Dong.
- 61.7% of Australian real estate professionals correctly named Xi Jing Ping as president of China. However, 23.9% incorrectly guessed Hu Jing Tao, and a combined 13.2% selected Kim Jong Un or Mao Ze Dong.
- 65.8% of Australian real estate professionals correctly identified the United States as the top country for Chinese property investment. 21% incorrectly guessed Australia was the top destination, and 11% incorrectly guessed the United Kingdom.
- Just 23% correctly guessed the average price of a Beijing apartment is USD 750,000 (~RMB 5,000,000), with 28% incorrectly guessing USD 900,000 (~RMB 6,000,000) and 49% guessing either USD 450,000 (~RMB 3,000,000) or USD 600,000 (~RMB 4,000,000).
- Nearly all of our Australian respondents over-estimated the share of Chinese citizens who hold a passport. Only 20% guessed correctly that 5% hold a passport. 32% incorrectly guessed that 10% of citizens hold one, 39% incorrectly guessed that one-quarter of citizens do, and 20% made a whopping mistake and guessed that half of Chinese citizens hold a passport.
- At 58%, more than half of Australian real estate professionals guessed correctly that Wechat is the primary means of communication for Chinese buyers. 19% guessed QQ, 14% guessed email and 9% guessed WhatsApp.
- Just one out of four Australian real estate professionals correctly guessed that Chinese buyers spent AU$24.3 billion on Australian real estate last year. 33% of Australians respondents underestimated the amount by half, guessing $13.4 billion. 24% of Australian respondents guessed $18.8 billion and 18% guessed $28 billion.
Matthew Moore, President of the Americas for Juwai.com, the No. 1 Chinese international real estate website, said, “The overall correct answer rate was 48 percent, but in Canada it was only 50 percent. Canada did OK, but not that well considering it is a top five country for Chinese investment.
“Real estate professionals in Cyprus, Turkey, France and Germany did better than those in Australia.
“Australia was only the ninth-ranked country, in terms of the knowledge its international real estate professionals have about the Chinese buyers. That said, Australians did better than agents of other English-speaking countries, like New Zealand, the UK, the US and Canada. The countries that ranked best are located in Asia, of course. The second-best ranking countries were in Europe. English-language countries like Australia ranked third.
Moore also admitted it was true that recognising the Chinese flag might not make much of a difference when it comes to successfully working with Chinese buyers, but he also said that the simple questions are an indicator of whether real estate professionals have invested time and energy in learning about and building relationships with potential buyers from China.
“Being able to understand and relate to the buyers that operate in your market is vitally important.”
