Real Estate in China

Real Estate Market In China

First Published Date: Aug 15, 2009

There will be few, if any, more important countries to the future of commerce and real estate in the next couple of decades than China. Viewed by many as a “sleeping giant” due to its immense landmass and population, but perceived insularity, there is no doubt that China is set to play a part as it increases its openness and moves ever more towards a market-based economy. The developments of recent years have led to just about every financial expert worth the name signalling their belief that China will become the world’s number one superpower by the middle of this century at the latest. A vital part of this process will be in its real estate sector.

For Western investors, there are still some sticking points when it comes to backing investment in China. Not least of these is the fact that with a population of one billion and a language that is the most prominently spoken as a first language (by numbers – of the billion plus Chinese residents, more than 900 million speak Mandarin as a first language. A third as many speak English as a mother tongue), China has little need to cater directly to foreign investors or incoming migrants. The growing policy of openness is expected to mitigate this somewhat, allowing new investors to feel confident in branching out into China.

From a real estate point of view specifically, China has also had to move from a point where most housing was state controlled to one where it is common for residents to own their own homes.  . It does seem like the country was always ready for this kind of progress and that, aware of the importance of a happy domestic population, the government has moved to give them just that. Although the overwhelming majority of home owners in China are Chinese, the incoming investor need no longer feel that there is an excessive bar to their prospective ownership of real estate property.

There are still some elements that give potential house buyers what they consider to be reasons not to invest. Although a great deal less insular than it was once considered, China is still not the most transparent place in the world for visitors. There is a large level of bureaucracy and seemingly obscure laws (from a Western perspective), but things don’t change overnight. What has happened in China in the last few decades has been more than impressive, so do not bet against things developing quickly in the future. If you are thinking of investing in Chinese real estate, the bargains tend to be outside the city centers but still close to centers of population. It is here, too, that anyone moving to the country and living there for the first time will best be able to acclimatise to the fascinating, unique nation that is China in the present day. Try one of the many Chinese real estate sites on the Internet to find out more.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the realestateexpedition.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Aug 15, 2009.