Archive for International News

China’s mortgage bubble save, for now.

Few days ago I was struck by this article in the new york times.

It’s about a few people’s stories who made downpayments of several hundred thousand dollars for developements that weren’t finished then.
Most of those represented 10% of the actual price.  
Now that there is a credit crunch, those sweet 90% low interest mortgage deals are no more, many of them require 20% to 50% down nowadays (depending on junior and jumbo deals if I got that right).
So if you paid an initial 100′000 US$ down on a place that’s 1 Million in total you’d have to come up with at least another 100′000 US Dollars or you’re deposit will go up in smoke as the article states.
That’s pretty harsh, but from the article it seems fairly common.

Now, I can tell you, this would never happen in China. The government would rather have the developers give the houses away for free than face a horde of angry people (who are many), that just lost all their savings.

I’ve been really thinking about it, and it doesn’t seem like this is going to change anytime soon.
The Party is very people concious, actually a lot more than anywhere else in the world, and if you think about it, that’s a good thing, at least in the short term.
Policies are always going to favor the individual investor.
Because as long as they keep the bull running, who cares about anything else?

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Davos Economic forum votes Shanghai most desirable city to invest

During the World Economic Forum,  Shanghai has been voted the world’s most attractive global city in the future in a survey by the greater Paris investment agency.
China’s largest City not only by population, enjoys the biggest investor confidence followed by Beijing, Mumbai and Dubai.

The President of the Commitee Thierry Jacquillat said it was the first such survey to include cities from emerging markets as China, Brazil and India.

The survey wad based on opinions of more than 500 business leaders of multinational companies interviewed in 22 countries.

Many see Pudong as the future of Shanghai and value this “plot of land” as one of the city’s most attractive places for property investment.

Lujiazui has already been present in headlines lately as the World Financial Center Inaugurated August 28, 2008 has opened it’s curtains to the world.
The 101 Storey building has an occupancy rate of roughly 50% so far.
The 492m Skyscraper is currently the third tallest in the world (and tallest in China) and will still be topped by nearly 150mby the Shanghai Center which is scheduled to complete in 2013.
Knowing how they build in Shanghai (faster than light), I’m having guess we’ll beat that too! 

According to Forbes the City will be amongst the biggest in the world by 2025 in terms of Population.
Shanghai Ranks 9th, with an estimated growth rate of 1.44% and a 19.4 Million large Population by 2025 compared to 14.5 Million in 2007. 

The Future holds a lot for Shanghai and it’s Real Estate Market, luckily, we’re here to report the process.

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