With China's housing market starting to cool down, many Chinese investors have shifted their focus from the domestic property market to Canada, where property represents a better investment.

A group of merchants from the city of Wenzhou in eastern China traveled last month to Vancouver to conduct a survey of the local housing market, according to the Hong Kong-based Sing Tao Daily. One of them, surnamed Jian, had his eyes on an upmarket property worth 50 million yuan (US$7.9 million), which is nonetheless only half the price of an equivalent property in Shanghai. "It is quite cheap," the news agency quoted Jian as saying.

A local real estate manager surnamed Chang said that a number of Chinese families have come to Canada to buy houses during the Chinese New Year holidays over the last two years. The holidays have become his busiest orking times and Chang helped four Chinese families from Wenzhou visit houses there on the first day of the holiday, he said.
 

Some Chinese investors said house prices in Canada are slightly cheaper than in China overall but prices in Vancouver are almost half of Shanghai prices, Chang said.

The appreciation of the renminbi is another factor that has encouraged Chinese investors to aim at the property market in the United States and Canada. The number of children of entrepreneurs from Wenzhou studying in the United States and Canada has also grown in recent years, a factor which also increases their interest in purchasing property in these countries.

Although there is an increasing trend for Chinese people to invest in property in Canada, these have so far been individual cases which have not raised local house prices overall, according to the report. There is so far no clear sign that Chinese investors are willing to invest heavily in overseas housing markets due to differences in laws and culture between China and other countries.

 

Please contact us in case of Copyright Infringement of the photo sourced from the internet, we will remove it within 24 hours.