Singapore Buys More Australian Real Estate Than China
Spending almost $20 billion in two years.
By Terry Christodoulou
Thu, Aug 26, 2021 6:48pm
< 1 min
< 1 min
Although a small city-state, Singapore is weighing in on Australia’s real estate market.
In the two years to July 2020, Singaporean investors spent $19.3 billion on Australian property, according to the latest Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) data.
That’s $6.1 billion more over the same period than China.
Another view is that Singapore makes up 17 cents of every foreign dollar spent on local property, versus China’s 13 cents – despite Singapore’s economy being approximately 44 times smaller.
Singapore is now the second-largest investor in Australian real estate, behind only the United States.
These figures come as foreign investment into Australian real estate has doubled in the last here years – largely at the hands of institutional investors and large scale projects.
Geographically – and in times of unrestricted borders – the tie between Australia and Singapore makes sense, with Perth, amongst other Australian capitals, a short flying distance away for Singaporeans.
This enormous figure also boosts Singapore’s standing across all industries, now representing the third-biggest source of foreign investment for Australia – behind only the U.S. and Japan.
MOST POPULAR
The Australian leather house has opened an immersive four-day pop-up in Manhattan, unveiling its Bloom Collection and redefining what a product launch can look like.
Following the successful launch of its Palais Collection, MAISON de SABRÉ has unveiled a new modular handbag system offering more than 720 styling combinations.
Related Stories
A five-bedroom Palo Alto home designed by Steven Ehrlich is listed for $44 million, making it the city’s most expensive listing. Built around a dramatic concrete spine, the home features four courtyards and a pool.
By E.B. Solomont
Thu, Sep 24, 2026 3 min
3 min
For years, tech entrepreneur Asher Waldfogel and his wife, Helyn MacLean, dreamed of building a modern house in Palo Alto, Calif.
The couple, however, worried about clashing with the Mediterranean-style architecture typically associated with their neighborhood of Old Palo Alto.
So they tapped architect Steven Ehrlich to create a design that paid homage to its surroundings with stucco, mahogany and titanium zinc cladding. They spent $20 million over several years building the house, completed in 2005.
Now looking to be closer to their adult daughter on the East Coast, they are putting the five-bedroom home on the market for $44 million—the most expensive listing in Palo Alto.
Waldfogel is an angel investor who co-founded Redback Networks, a telecommunications-equipment company. MacLean previously had a career in fundraising.
The couple purchased the roughly 0.4-acre site for $7.1 million in 2000 and demolished a circa-1930s Spanish Colonial home. The house they built pinwheels around a central staircase. It has 7,900 square feet of livable space, with four distinct courtyards and a pool.
A key feature of the home is a cast-in-place concrete wall, or spine, that is two stories high and about 80 feet long. “There’s a little bit of controlled chaos in what comes out of the form,” unlike a perfectly uniform surface, Waldfogel said. “If you want that, you do it in plastic.”
Waldfogel said he and his wife are thinking about the next phase of life now that their daughter is grown, although they have not decided where they will move. They also have a home in Sun Valley, Idaho.
“Right now we’re just trying to emotionally let go and decide what to do next,” he said.
Palo Alto, an epicenter of venture capital and tech startups in Silicon Valley, is home to some of the country’s biggest tech titans. Sales volume and prices are rising, with a median sale price of $3.5 million for the three months ending in August, up 5.8% year-over-year, according to real-estate brokerage Redfin.
Arthur Sharif of Sotheby’s International Realty—San Francisco Brokerage has the listing.
