It seems that Chinese buyers have the buying power in today's market. That includes Chinese-speaking Australians who hail from China and other parts of Asia Pacific. It also includes those who still reside China or other parts of Asia and want to buy property in the Asia-Pacific's most stable, advanced country. (That would be Australia.)

Just a few months ago, Juwai.com launched and it's now the largest international property portal for Chinese buyers.

Now, top-5 Australian real estate portal Thehomepage.com.au is betting there is also a demand for Chinese-language advertisements in its off-the-plan section. More than 50 new-development property ads on Thehomepage.com.au have been upgraded to Chinese less than a week after the soft launch of these pages.

I've pasted their official press release below, but first I want to disclose that Thehomepage.com.au is a PR client of mine:

Real Estate Developers Embrace Chinese-Language Listings On Property Portal Thehomepage.com.au

Real estate developers have embraced Chinese language listings on Thehomepage.com.au. More than 50 new property development advertisements have been upgraded to appear in both English and Chinese only one week after the portal launched the new feature. Thehomepage.com.au is the first and only top-five real estate portal* in Australia is to provide listings in Chinese.

The site soft launched the Chinese-language webpages for off the plan listings in the final week of April. Developers consider this an important new marketing tool for reaching the fastest growing group of buyers in Australia.

Chinese buyers, both local and from Asia, account for about 60% of enquiries and purchases in developments across Australia, according data collected from developers by Thehomepage.com.au. Chinese buyers doubled the number of applications to purchase property in Australia last year, according to the Foreign Investment Review Board.

"The need to market to the Chinese buyer requires an effective and cost efficient channel that can work in cohesion with the other channels to deliver a truly integrated campaign" said Clive Hayes, Business Director of JWT Property, which provides a full-service integrated communication offering to the residential and commercial property sectors. "This initiative by Thehomepage.com.au will be a very useful tactic to the property industry, and I expect it to be quickly embraced."

Thehomepage.com.au CEO Ben Stockdale said, "When Chinese want to buy off the plan, there is only one major Australian portal where they can see listings in Chinese, and that's Thehomepage.com.au."

Many Chinese buyers prefer new property rather than resale property. Australian law limits prohibits foreigners from acquiring established dwellings for investment purposes.

Thehomepage.com.au also places residential listings on Juwai.com, the number 1 international property portal for Chinese buyers, when ranked by number of monthly unique browsers, property listings and editorial resources.

Thehomepage.com.au's listings are translated into Mandarin by a team of professional linguists.

About Thehomepage.com.au

Thehomepage.com.au enables real estate agents to reach more buyers. Agents and developers who market only on the top two property portals fail to reach the more than 260,000 monthly unique browsers who only visit Thehomepage.com.au - and not the top portals. (Nielsen Market Intelligence)

Notes

• Nielsen NetRatings ranks Thehomepage.com.au fifth in monthly unique browser among residential real estate portals in Australia.

Business 2