Real Estate Seen as Key to Corruption in China – and more of today’s China Real Estate Links | January 28, 2013

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

• Disclose officials’ real estate information to cut corruption

  Recently there were several scandals exposed by the media that local officials with several hukou, or household registrations, owned several houses worth a huge amount of money.
  The corrupt officials abused their power to amass great wealth, forged household registrations and then purchased several real estate properties.
  For common people, urban hukou, which give access to public services and social welfare, are hard to obtain.

• SOHO’s Zhang Xin Speaks on China Real Estate, Economy

  Zhang Xin, chief executive officer of property developer Soho China Ltd., talks about China’s economy and real estate market. She speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television’s “Surveillance” on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

• China Makes New York Real Estate Look Cheap

  The median house price in New York was equal to 6.2 years’ worth of the median pretax household income in 2011. The most comparable data we have for an array of Chinese cities — shown in red above — suggests that homes in New York are a steal compared to those in urban parts of the Middle Kingdom.
  The Chinese data (which use a slightly different metric: the price of a 70-square-meter home divided by average annual pretax household income) show that in Shanghai it would cost 15.9 times the typical household income to buy a standard home. In Beijing, the ratio is even higher, at 22.3.

• Department Stores and Shopping Malls in China

  Over the past five years, revenue for the Department Stores and Shopping Mall industry in China has been growing 9.2% per year, says IBISWorld. The industry has developed steadily in recent years due to the development of the retail sector; changes in operating methods; changes in market needs; increasing economies of scale; and the entry of foreign investment.

  Market share concentration within the Department Stores and Shopping Mall industry in China is low, although it does vary across segments, says IBISWorld.

This list is updated daily, so tune in again tomorrow for more up to date information, or subscribe to our daily email news digest to get this delivered to your mailbox.