Australia is a huge continent, and yet most of its population lives along a few, fairly small stretches of the extensive coastline. And even along the parts of the coastline which are inhabited, there are only a few significant centres where most of the country¡¯s residential real estate would be either available or of interest to foreign purchasers.

In short, the coastline cities are the hubs of Australia's jobs, schools, universities, financial markets, creative endeavours and entertainment. If ranking Australia's cities in order of their "real estate significance" to foreign purchasers, we would start with Sydney, in the State of New South Wales, then go on to Melbourne (Victoria) and Brisbane and the Gold Coast (Queensland) and then Darwin (Northern Territory), Perth (Western Australia), Adelaide (South Australia) and Hobart (Tasmania).

The inland city of Canberra ( ACT, Australian Capital Territory) is also a significant hub, being the centre of Federal Government activity. The Gold Coast, south of Brisbane, is a tourism and employment centre where there is a great deal of real estate development and off-the-plan selling.

The real estate advertisements in the major newspapers of these cities, (generally the Saturday editions), list most of what is available for sale in each city and its surrounding suburbs. The full list of these papers can be obtained by writing to the author of this article.

If the property of your interest is in Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra, you may contact the author to find out the prices properties have sold for in the suburb that interests you over the last 12 months (or longer, if required).

If you are interested in buying a particular two bedroom apartment in Kensington, for example, the author can tell you what similar apartments in the suburb, the street, even the same block have sold for over recent months. This will give you a good idea of price expectations for that size and type of property in that specific suburb.

Foreign buyers are also interested, obviously, in getting some idea of the kind of neighbourhood they are looking to buy into. Is the neighbourhood close to parks and sporting facilities? What is the financial demographic of the area? What is the ethnic composition of the area? In that case, the author may supply you Postcode Snapshots that provide an instant overview, a snapshot, of the real estate, facilities and population make up of the suburb you are interested in (currently only covers Sydney and Melbourne). (Australia's equivalent to America's zipcode)

The author would be happy to offer you independent factual information on your area of interest.

Credit: Real Estate Editor

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