Overseas buyers just a tiny part of Tassie market

News Corp Australia Network

Total paradise at Coal Mine Rd, Gardners Bay. Picture: Supplied

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IN recent years Hobart’s property market has been flying high, posting huge growth figures and smashing records.

But there is one metric where the southernmost capital city can’t compete with its sister cities interstate: overseas buyers.

No matter how many environmental and tourism accolades Hobart and Tasmania stack up, they remain off the radar of international homebuyers.

When the calendar year data is released, the story is always the same, with buyers from other countries making up a tiny percentage of Tasmania’s total sales.

Last year, from about 10,000 transactions, Real Estate Institute of Tasmania figures show just 52 purchasers were from overseas — about half of 1 per cent.

In 2021 there were 41 sales, 58 in 2020, 68 in 2019, 85 in 2018, 86 in 2017, 54 in 2016, 63 in 2015, 51 in 2014 and 44 in 2013. That’s about 600 sales in a decade.

Hobart is the starting point for property seekers when looking at Tasmania.

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REIT stats show a big increase in the value of sales by international buyers, from $24.5m in 2021 to $40.3m last year. The median price increased from $481,000 to $735,500. Just five years ago, the median was $347,000.

Meanwhile, PropTrack’s latest Overseas Search Report put a spotlight on where overseas buyers are looking to buy or rent when perusing the Apple Isle.

Naturally, Hobart was No.1 on the search list.

PropTrack senior data analyst Karen Dellow found that Tassie’s most sought after suburbs by overseas property seekers were Hobart, Sandy Bay, Launceston, Battery Point and then Kingston in fifth place.

The countries doing the most searching in Tasmania were topped by the United States followed by the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Canada.

Karen Dellow, PropTrack data analyst.

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Ms Dellow’s report revealed the suburbs with the biggest year-on-year increase in searches by overseas buyers were all outside of Hobart City. And the suburbs that took out the top spots have zero similarities. No.1 was Huon hotspot Gardners Bay (a 447 per cent increase), followed by Goodwood in the northern suburbs (287 per cent).

The next most popular areas were Trevallyn (95 per cent), Carlton (87 per cent) and Kingston Beach (76 per cent).

In the rental sector, the suburbs with the largest annual increase in searches by overseas people was headlined by Perth (307 per cent), then Gardners Bay again (276 per cent), Mayfield (152 per cent), Newnham (124 per cent) and Riverside (122 per cent).