Hi Tom,

I am living in China at the moment and faced the same issue. Scratched around up here for a while looking at different options. I ended up re-financing my existing property in Melbourne and buying a new place with one loan from here using ANZ in Beijing. Basically I now structure the loan where part is in Aussie Dollars (where the interest payments match my rental income) and part in Hong Kong dollars (which is matched to my RMB income). This means I am effectively hedged as currency movements don't change my net position. Also got a cheaper rate for the Hong Kong Dollar part of the loan at 5.5% so I save a bit as well.

Another good thing is that I can deal with the bank from up here for everything and can make payments directly to the local branch or from my China account – don't need to deal with Australia.

Hope that helps.