Chinese millions - and a loophole - keep luxury home market buoyant

''They're the only ones that have got the big dollars at the moment .. It's tough, tough, tough,'' Sandie Dunne, of Dunne Mosman, said.

''When it's good [property], the Chinese are certainly there with the big dollars.''

Another north shore agent, Jon Dundas-Smith, agrees, having notched up three big sales in the past three months in the Chatswood area to buyers from China.

''There's a lot of money coming in from Beijing,'' Mr Dundas-Smith said. ''Once you get over $2 million, the Chinese are the most dominant … without them, there would be a lot more houses sitting on the market and quite a lot of sales not going through.''

The influx of money at the top end comes despite last year's move to toughen up foreign ownership of Australian property rules, after the Rudd government had relaxed them.

One way in is via the student route. Parents buy a place for their children to live in while they study. Temporary residents - often students or skilled migrants - can still, as Rudd allowed, buy one established property of any value. They used to be limited to buying something under $300,000.

Last year's new rules that they apply through the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) and sell the property when they leave is not discouraging many.

Ms Dunne has been showing buyers from China through $6 million properties. ''They can put it in their son's name or their cousin's name, but there is this condition that the property must be sold when the study is finished,'' she said.

''It allows them to get in through this loophole.''

A $20 million heritage-listed Harry Seidler-designed property in Parriwi Road, Mosman is also on their shopping lists. ''Three Chinese groups have looked at it,'' Ms Dunne said.

Of the 380,000 student visas current in March, a quarter were held by Chinese. Even though the number of overseas students coming to Australia has dropped recently, a large number of those studying here want to stay. Many do. A survey by the Immigration Department last year, ''How New Migrants Fare,'' said ''a large number of former overseas students or temporary skilled migrants … subsequently transfer to a permanent visa''.

Others are business people who are given temporary visas that offer a pathway to becoming permanent residents.

''They have to be running a business generating a certain amount of income,'' Mr Dundas-Smith said.

''They're going back and forth to China and a lot of them have family here; they get tired of staying in hotels so they buy a house out here.''

He sold a five-bedroom home in one of Chatswood's best streets, Clanwilliam Street, in May after it had earlier passed in on a $2.35 million vendor bid and had been given a $2.5 million price tag. There was a confidentiality agreement on the price, but the Chinese buyer did not haggle.

Mr Dundas-Smith said it is mainly the wives who undertake the property transaction. ''We always sell to the wives - the men seem to be back in China working hard.''

He says getting FIRB approval is never difficult. ''It's just two to seven days,'' he said.

New apartments are the easiest option: with FIRB approval, foreigners can buy as many as they like.

Most apartment developers say the number of buyers from China is growing. The head of CB Richard Ellis, David Milton, who sells a large range of off-the-plan projects across Sydney, says up to half of his customers are Chinese, and 10 per cent to 15 per cent are from overseas.

In some buildings, such as the recently completed Inmark Tower in George Street, more than 90 per cent are Chinese.

''Most of the [offshore] Chinese that are buying here are buying because of an existence of a relationship: their child might be going to university here - that's the most common scenario,'' he said.

''And we also have a number of wealthy Chinese looking to gain residency as business migrants and they are investing here as well buying property.''

The high dollar is not deterring them, since they consider it a lifelong investment.

''The effect of having only one child is that that's where your money goes,'' Mr Milton said. ''They tend to invest where the child has studied, because, typically, they will eventually gain residency and have a lifelong association with Australia.''

The sales manager of Frasers Property Australia, Adam Sparkes, says about 20 per cent of the 533 sales in the Central Park development in Chippendale have been to people living overseas, 10 per cent of them from China.