The Chinese housing market is seeing phenomenal growth in prices. Despite the global slowdown, property prices in Beijing and Shanghai have quadrupled in recent years, threatening to push house prices beyond the reach of Chinese families.

Because of this, and the fact that most people expect the phenomenal growth to continue, thousands of Chinese families are stretching themselves very thin to buy a house now, for fear that prices will spiral out of their reach in the coming months and years.

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Centaline Property Agency Ltd. in Hong Kong reported about a possibility of a home prices rebound as early as this year. According to the agency’s research there has already been an increase in pricing in four of Hong Kong’s biggest mass housing estates where prices for property are below 1.3 million. Right now the prices in these estates are above the levels we saw last year in September which is a healthy sign for a possible market rebound.

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Randy Lynch, founder and seasoned traveller of U.S. based luxury travel firm Kipling & Clark has compiled a list of his favourite hotels in the Asian region which has now been released by the guide.

The list features the top ten luxury hotels in all of Asia where wary travellers can rest their bodies after a hard day of sightseeing or shopping. We have listed them in order of rank below:
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While China is in the middle of a housing downturn, wealthy Chinese buyers are travelling to the US in groups on home-buying tours. Many are buying homes in the US to take advantage of the recent reduction in real estate.

Yin Guohua, a partner in a law firm stated ”The real estate prices in America have gone down drastically. It’s a good option for Chinese people who want to buy for investment purposes.”

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Stories of Beijing being a ghost city are surfacing all over the Internet. They tell of a city which less than a year ago was prepped to bustle in anticipation of the Olympic Games and yet, a few months after it is all over the city looks deserted and half of the city center’s sky scrapers stand desolated and empty.

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^{Lewis Hamilton @ Shanghai GP [Credits: Emilgh]}

With the world seemingly against him, Lewis Hamilton proved them all wrong and raced to a fantastic win in Shanghai’s Formula 1 on Sunday. He was labeled arrogant by the press and some of his rival drivers even pledged to help his title rivals in order to pay him a lesson, but regardless of all the talk and chatter, the Brit is now in a sweet position to become the youngest world champion ever if he manages to finish in the top five on Nov. 2^nd in Brazil’s end of season race.

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^{Beijing [credits: Wawoe]}

China’s property market has taken a steep turn for the worse if we are to believe the various reports that are beginning to surface in major online publications right now.

The signs of trouble are not a total shock to the system of any alert investor, as many would have been aware of the implications when China started to ban major development projects at the beginning of this year due to heavy pollution in the city of Beijing. This ban didn’t happen overnight though, it was advertised in due time to give developers ample time to prepare themselves for the change.

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^{São Paulo Skyline}

The term BRIC originated back in 2003 and was coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill. It was O’Neill’s opinion that since the US economy took a nose dive it allowed the BRIC countries Brazil, Russia, India and China to take a bigger slice of the world’s gross domestic product.

We would be taking a quick peek into the property markets of these four countries, to gain a better overview of what exactly is going on.
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The fourth quarter of 2007 saw the end of Beijing and Shanghai’s housing boom. As transaction volumes plummeted by as much as 25 and 40 percent from July to August 2008 and by 67 and 70 percent year on year in Beijing and Shanghai respectively, developers’ are having to offer buyers’ massive discounts to boost sales of new units. According to CCTV, last month’s (August), average daily turnover in Beijing was a meagre 150 units which in Beijing standards is a new all time low.

Secondhand properties are also not doing well with a year-on-year decline of 10-15 percent in August, sellers have having to make price cuts by as much as 5 percent.

The situation at the moment is that it is a buyers’ market in housing in 1st tier Chinese cities with more and more potential buyers waiting to see if there would be further price drops to pick up properties at bargain prices.
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China’s property laws are not easy to see through if you have never been there or are not familiar with local laws and customs. On our journey through the online world of information we came across many contradicting messages and while trying to sort through all the stuff we came up with the following information. To stay true to all the sources we have quoted many and hope the result is a somewhat informative guide to buying real estate in China.

According to a recent report by WorldBank, 120 cities and regions within China have been surveyed for their overall investment climate.

Taken into account were differences in the importance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in local industries, over staffing of labor, firm access to bank loans, confidence in protection of property and contract rights and overall adequacy of local transport and power.

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