Latest NewsSydney Joins 'top 4' World Cities for Foreign InvestorsWednesday, 29 March 2017

Sydney ranked as the fourth-most popular investment destination for global investors, after London, Paris and New York.

A survey by the property consultant CBRE found that in the past 18 months Sydney attracted 4 per cent of all cross-regional transactions. Global property deals for the period was E22.4 billion ($33.1bn).

London pulled in 27 per cent of all investments, worth more than E6bn, while Sydney's share was about $1bn.

Richard Butler, CBRE senior managing director in Australia, said the spread of buyers had broadened.

Mr Butler said Australia had a rare combination of stability and transparency, coupled with a strong economic outlook.

"Perhaps against expectations, the high and rising Australian dollar doesn't appear to be reducing foreign interest," he said.

Although European investors continued to be active, the dominant buyers were from Asia.

Mr Butler expects to see more South Africans following changes to that country's investment exit laws.

Acquisitions have centred on Brisbane and Sydney and include office, retail and industrial property.

CBRE's research shows that foreign investors accounted for 42 per cent of all Australian purchases in the third quarter of 2010, and 36 per cent year to date.

"The annual share of foreign investment is typically around 10-15 per cent," Mr Butler said.

South Korea's National Pension Service has become almost as high profile as Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Government of Singapore Investment (GIC) with its purchases of trophy assets in key capital cities.

Aside from buying Sydney's blue-chip office block Aurora Place, the Korean group acquired the Sony Centre in Berlin and bought a 50 per cent share of the O'Parinor shopping centre in Paris recently.

The group has indicated its appetite for buying more properties in the Asia Pacific region, including Australia.

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