bloomberg | If they were anywhere else in Beijing, the five young women in cowboy
hats and matching red, white, and blue costumes would look wildly out
of place.
But here at the city’s biggest international property
fair -- a frenetic gathering of brokers, developers and other real
estate professionals all jockeying for the attention of Chinese buyers
-- the quintet of wannabe Texans fits right in. As they promote Houston
townhouses (“Yours for as little as $350,000!”), a Portugal contingent
touts its Golden Visa program and the Australian delegation lures
passersby with stuffed kangaroos.
Welcome to ground zero for the
world’s largest cross-border residential property boom. Motivated by a
weakening yuan, surging domestic housing costs and the desire to secure
offshore footholds, Chinese citizens are snapping up overseas homes at
an accelerating pace. They’re also venturing further afield than ever
before, spreading beyond the likes of Sydney and Vancouver to
lower-priced markets including Houston, Thailand’s Pattaya Beach and
Malaysia’s Johor Bahru.
The
buying spree has defied Chinese government efforts to restrict capital
outflows and shows little sign of slowing after an estimated $15 billion
of overseas real estate purchases in the first half. For cities in the
cross-hairs, the challenge is to balance the economic benefits of
Chinese demand against the risk that rising home prices spur a public
backlash.
“The Chinese have managed to accumulate very large
amounts of wealth, and the opportunities to deploy that capital in their
own market are somewhat restricted,” said Richard Barkham, the
London-based chief global economist at CBRE Group Inc., the world’s
largest commercial property brokerage. “China has more than a billion
people. Personally, I think we have just seen a trickle.”
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