China's Emergence as a Superpower (till 2014)

[Dayuhan]

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/201...#axzz1y5ZrDqyp

China’s capital flight: to US real estate

Excerpt:

Pamela Liebman, chief executive of The Corcoran Group, a residential real estate brokerage company, says the group has seen a “huge” influx of wealthy mainland Chinese shopping for high-end properties in New York since the start of the year.

“It’s extraordinary,” she says. “Five years ago, we never talked about Chinese buyers. We started noticing them 18 months ago but they have only become much more prevalent in the past year.”

Liebman says she saw “hundreds of millions” of dollars in sales last year to Chinese buyers and the pace has intensified since the start of 2012. “The past quarter has been our best quarter ever in terms of sales to Chinese buyers.”

Properties that have been snapped up by China’s rich range from $1m apartments to $20m trophy properties. “Buying groups” – group tours of mainland buyers coming to New York to view properties – have become commonplace, says Liebman.

It's not just NY or the US, either. Chinese buyers are buying high-end real estate all over the world. That suggests that controls on capital movement are (predictably) ineffective, and that wealthy Chinese are not entirely confident about the domestic future... but we shall see.