China-Australia relations: student housing sector Down Under hit by border closure, rift with Beijing
- As of March, Australia had 512,855 international students, or 17 per cent fewer than a year ago
- China-Australia tensions might be a major dampening factor, CUHK professor says; border closure more likely to affect arrivals, Melbourne think tank says
A decline in international students, including those from China, has forced the owners of student accommodation in Australia to turn their properties into residential or co-living flats, analysts said.
Last year, with borders closed, international students enrolling in Australian educational institutions declined 9 per cent to 686,104, with 28 per cent coming from China, followed by 17 per cent from India, according to data from the Australian government. As of March, there were 512,855 students, 17 per cent fewer than a year ago.
“Purpose-built student accommodation [PBSA], hostels and backpacker properties have been impacted the most by the decrease in international students. The annual influx of international students into these properties has been virtually zero, upon the closure of Australian borders,” said Raymond Tran, director, CBRE Hotels. “On the development front, there has been a slight shift with some previously proposed hotel, residential or PBSA developments now being converted into co-living or build-to-rent schemes.”
The owners of student accommodation are likely to feel the pinch – Australia is the world’s third-largest provider of international education with international students accounting for more than one in three at its top universities, according to government officials. The sector added A$37.5 billion (US$28 billion) to the economy in 2020, with 60 per cent going toward housing, food, transport and tourism. The segment is also estimated to have supported 250,000 jobs.
A decline in enrolments is likely to shrink Australia’s international education sector by almost half, from A$40.3 billion in 2019 to A$20.5 billion in 2022, according to a study published in April by Melbourne-based Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute for Education and Health Policy.
“By July of next year, the number of international students living in Australia is likely to have fallen by more than two-thirds,” said Georg Chmiel, founder and executive chairman of Asian real estate platform Juwai IQI. “From about 500,000 in April 2020 to only about 165,000. More than 335,000 students who would have been living in some sort of housing here in Australia will probably be missing.”