Wealthy seek shelter in foreign housing market

Real estate agents in Australia, Britain and Canada are bracing for a surge of new interest in their already hot property markets, with early signs that wealthy Chinese investors are seeking a safe haven from the turmoil in Shanghai's equity markets.

Sydney agent Michael Pallier said that in the past week alone he has sold two new apartments and shown a $10.3 million house in the harborside city to Chinese buyers looking for an alternative to stocks.

"A lot of high net worth individuals had already taken money out of the stock market because it was getting just too hot," said Pallier, the principal of Sydney Sotheby's International Realty. "There's a huge amount of cash sitting in China, and I think you'll find a lot of that comes to the Australian property market."