‘This is just the start’: China’s passion for foreign property
‘This is just the start’: China’s passion for foreign property
Posted by John P. Bradford // September 30, 2016
A huge new wave of Chinese investment in overseas housing may be about to flow into the global market. In Hong Kong, Tom Phillips meets the salesmen who market British property to mainland China
China is so big, marvels Victor Li, using his fingers to count all the cities he has flown to over the last 12 months to meet with cash-rich Chinese buyers interested in buying into a real-life game of London Monopoly.
Li, a director of international project marketing for the US real estate giant CBRE, is predicting a surge of eastern investment in British homes over the next decade, as increasingly affluent Chinese investors acquire a taste for international property.
I think it is just beginning, says Li, of the amount of money pouring into property around the world from mainland China. You do the figures: China has a population of 1.4 billion. If you target only 1% of Chinas population, thats 14 million people so its already almost two Londons.
Sitting in his office overlooking Hong Kongs skyscraper-dotted Victoria Harbour, Li estimates that just 3% of potential Chinese investors in overseas property have so far been found meaning a virtually untapped goldmine lies over the border in mainland China. China is a big market, you know? he says. They are getting wealthier and wealthier.