Foreign investment in residential real estate is expected to increase in the ACT as the territory becomes more attractive to wealthy Asian buyers.
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A new report indicates there is increasing interest in the capital shown by residents of China and Hong Kong.
Property experts say the territory is looking more appealing to buyers as Sydney and Melbourne become more expensive.
The McGrath Report for 2014 notes while Chinese buyers are not big players in the Canberra market as yet, a survey conducted by HSBC indicates interest is growing.
The survey, conducted earlier this year, asked affluent Asian buyers which Australian cities they would consider to invest in property over the next 12 months.
About 34 per cent of Chinese buyers and 31 per cent of Hong Kong buyers indicated they would buy in the territory over all other states and territories.
Australian Property Institute ACT president Paul Powderly said there had been about $100 million in foreign investment in residential real estate in the past eight months for sites in Harrison, Campbell and Lawson.
He said this money was predominately coming from China, Malaysia and Singapore.
Mr Powderly said this was significantly in excess of previous years where the amount of foreign investment coming into residential real estate was too little to bother monitoring.
Real Estate Institute of the ACT spokesman Craig Bright said he had noticed an increasing interest in the territory's property market by foreign buyers but just for large development sites.
"I'm not sure that's translated to established properties as yet but there's more activity than there was 18 months ago," he said.
Mr Bright said Canberra was seen as an affordable city compared with Sydney and Melbourne and had started to attract investment again.
Data from the Foreign Investment Review Board, which approves all foreign purchases of residential real estate, shows that while small, the numbers of foreign buyers in the ACT is increasing.
There were 31 approvals for proposed investment in real estate in the 2009/10 financial year, 86 in 2010/11 and123 approvals in the 2012/13 financial year.
Developer Tony Pan from Oriental Companion Property is about to sell Canberra as a destination for wealthy Asian buyers when he markets his developments in Shanghai and Beijing.
Mr Pan, who has 140 dwelling sites in Lawson, aims to sell about 30 per cent of his stock to overseas buyers.
He will market Canberra as a destination for parents to send children for university study, which is how the ANU graduate came to live in the ACT.
"People know that Australia is a good place to study but they don't know Canberra very well yet," Mr Pan said.
"I'm looking at the whole picture – if we get more investment here the whole community will benefit."
