Beijing’s Billionaires Now Outnumber Los Angeles’ – Today’s China Real Estate Links | November 8, 2013

Here is a list of the day’s latest China real estate news collected from around the web:

• Beijing’s Billionaires Now Outnumber Los Angeles’

  Times aren’t easy for the world’s aspirational billionaires. Only 10 people around the globe joined the nine-figure club between July 2012 and June 2013, an increase of 0.5 percent, according to a new study by Wealth-X, a research firm, and UBS, an investment bank. (While more than 10 people around the world became billionaires, 29 Europeans fell back to mere millionaire status.).

  China minted 10 new billionaires, bringing its total to 157, the biggest increase of any country in the world.

• Seattle property a hot buy for Chinese investors

  Seattle real estate has recently been the target for a growing number of foreign investors, especially from China. While many of them buy houses or condos using all cash, first-time homebuyers in Seattle are finding it hard to compete.
  “Most of the international investments are with cash. And they might seek to refinance later, but a primary objective would be to create that financial safe harbor,” said Dean Jones, the principal of Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty.

• Beijing Opens Second IKEA Store

  Swedish home furnishing giant IKEA opens its 14th store in China on Thursday, accelerating the retail expansion in the world’s fastest growing economy.
  The new store, also the second in Beijing, will be one of four full-range standard IKEA stores in China.
  “After providing furnishing solutions for people living in the north part of the city, now we open a store in the south part of the city to further fulfill our vision of ‘creating a better everyday life for people’,” said Zhu Changlai, IKEA China retail manager.

• Chinese investors splash out on Australia’s Gold Coast

  Chinese investors are strengthening their hold on the Gold Coast, splashing nearly $185 million on properties on the tourist strip last financial year.

  The total Chinese spend on the Gold Coast increased by $53 million compared to the previous financial year and was almost double the $96 million Chinese investors spent in Brisbane during the same period.

• Soufun Founder to Address US Real Estate Group

  Invited by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), Vincent Mo, founder and Executive Chairman of SouFun Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:SFUN, “SouFun”), the leading real estate internet and wireless portal in China, is giving a speech, “Selling U.S. Properties to Chinese Buyers: Analyses and Practices of SouFun”, at the 2013 NAR Annual Convention to be held on November 8th in San Francisco. More than 30,000 real estate agents and other professionals from across the U.S. and abroad are expected to attend this Annual Convention.

• China’s attempts to bridle record house prices

  House prices in China are scaling record highs, leading the government to enforce a patchwork of controls on the market for the fourth consecutive year to calm activity.

  Home prices climbed at their fastest pace in three years in September, underlining concerns that housing is increasingly unaffordable for many Chinese.

  But real estate is also a rare bright spot in the world’s No 2 economy, helping support growth, which is sagging this year towards a 23-year-low of 7.5 per cent.

• The uncomfortable truth in China’s property market

  In defying four years of official cooling efforts, China’s soaring house prices reveal an uncomfortable truth: government is one of the biggest obstacles to the success of taming the market.

  State income is so entwined in the need for rising land prices that policy efforts to try to curb the house market create an inherent conflict of interest.

This list is updated daily, so tune in again tomorrow for more up to date information.

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