The prospect of a field of bargains in key Sydney and Melbourne suburbs has real estate agents licking their lips in anticipation of a buyers auction frenzy over the coming weekends, after news that Chinese security services would be supported by the AFP in procuring Australian assets believed funded by corruption in China.
‘A once in a lifetime opportunity’ says Rene Stroker of upmarket Sydney property advisory Stroker partners, which has handled $242 million in sales since July 2011, of the announcement that the Australian Federal Police will join their Chinese counterparts to seize the assets of corrupt Chinese officials who have come to Australia.
‘I have just got off the phone to a valued client who was pretty enthusiastic about the possibility of placing his entire holding in as short as possible a timeframe, and I believe his price expectations are very realistic. This will be the best chance some buyers have had in a long time to get a toe in the door at a price approaching their expectations’ Stroker said, adding that ‘there will be a lot of expectations, and I would not be surprised to see those give the bidding some momentum’
Those sentiments were backed up vendors who argued that now would be a good time pocket gains from the strongest Australian real estate market in a generation. Madame Penny Tsing, Managing Director of Tsing Capital Asset Laundering Australasia, said she was fielding calls from ‘motivated’ vendors who saw a market at the peak and were looking for new challenges.
‘I find it hard to imagine that Sydney real estate could get any more crazy than it has been, and when you think that here in Australia, real estate is subsidized by a cash strapped government relying on iron ore, coal, LNG and gold, with a generation looking to depart the workforce wanting a successor generation to pay far more than they will ever be able to afford, working as aged care assistants. It has been wonderful, and we will always love you, but it is time.’
The Monday announcement, which follows on repeated warnings by China that it would pursue the ‘Tigers’ or corrupt officials who have parked unprecedented sums outside China and reclaim what it sees as ill gotten booty, appears to be something of a shock for the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board, which has not seen anything wrong with a single application by a foreign national to buy Australian real estate since 2007, Austrac, which has never seen a problem with a single transaction coming out of China, and a range of players in Australia’s real estate and mortgage lending industries, who have long argued that Australia’s real estate purchase processes were inviolable, foolproof and ironclad.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if a totalitarian foreign corrupt government actually intimidated our so called democratic corrupt government into finally doing something. I’m not holding my breath on any of the corrupt players in this little saga being held to account but i guess we can always hope.
For one even if significant assets where seized and those behind hiding and funneling the corrupt assets are arrested the local courts will never extradite them to china. Our courts do not extradite to a country where the death penalty is applied for this sort of corruption. Besides which the courts will unlock frozen assets for these people to use to fund their defense. And as well all know if you have millions to throw at a defense team this will drag out in court for years until it is forgotten by everyone.
The best we could hope for is the initial publicity will cause fear and stop the inflow into the property market with perhaps others selling up asap and moving on. But i expect a lot of the assets like property will over the many years it has taken place have been transferred and hidden ownership behind any multitude of relatives and financial instruments so as to make them all but invisible and untouchable by the courts. You can do that when you have the money.
The only other good thing that may come out of this is testimony of how easy it was to ignore the non existing enforcement of any and all FIRB rules. Maybe that will shame the govt into doing something. And also hopefully it will expose the corrupt money trail to the so call Australian-Chinese associations and expose their links to politicians who have supported this corruption. In the same way that the libs have been shafted by ICAC and property developer corruption heres hoping this can lift the lid on corrupt money influence on politicians at a federal level that have aided and abetted all this. And i expect to see that pointed directly at senior labour figures for the last 10 years. In particular i would like to see Kaptain Krudd strung up on the yard arm for his part in all this.
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