Chinese Buyers Abroad

An article from Qatar that fills in some of the gaps in the Mythical Chinese Buyer story.

Stymied at home, Chinese hunt for property abroad

But while Chinese buyers, or any buyers for that matter, may be welcome in severely depressed property markets such as those in the United States, the UK or parts of Europe, the inflows of Chinese money are causing headaches for economies elsewhere which are growing at a much faster clip.

To beat the rules, Sun, like many other Chinese, turned to her relatives for help. They pooled their annual quotas together to give her enough foreign currency to put a downpayment on the three houses, which were worth a total A$3m ($3.1m).

Kind of amazing that in a country with a long-term one child policy this person found 60 relatives to help him/her out with this little Yuan-export trick.

Others sneak their money out of China by disguising the funds as import bills. Such cracks in China’s capital controls will help feed demand for houses elsewhere. “We think that in a relatively short period of time and in a way that is measurable, Chinese buyers are going to account for something on the order of 10-20 percent of the London market,” said Gerald Allison, a director at global real estate agency DTZ in London.