China Overseas Land Says 1H Profit Rises as Sales Expand – and more of Today’s China Real Estate Links | August 6, 2013

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

• China Overseas Land Says 1H Profit Rises as Sales Expand

  China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd., the country’s biggest developer by market value listed in Hong Kong, said first-half profit climbed 32 percent as it sold more properties.
  Net income rose to HK$11 billion ($1.4 billion), or HK$1.34 a share, from HK$8.38 billion, or HK$1.02 a share, a year earlier, the company said in a stock-exchange filing today. Sales increased 27 percent to HK$32.2 billion, it said.
  The developer benefited from focusing on so-called first-tier cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, where demand remained strong even as the government stepped up a three-year campaign to cool home prices in March.

• Majority of new London homes sold to foreigners

  Close to 75 percent of all new residential purchases in central London last year were made by foreign buyers, with over 50 percent coming from Singapore, China, Malaysia and Hong Kong, according to property consultancy Knight Frank.
  Most of these homes were sold at overseas exhibitions before they were even advertised to UK buyers, who made up just 27 percent of the area’s new buyers.

• Thai tycoons plan to raise $891 million from property funds

  Thai real estate companies controlled by Charoen Pokphand Group (CP) and TCC Group plan to raise a combined 28 billion baht ($891 million) from selling separate property funds to the public, fund manager Krung Thai Asset Management said.

  CP Land Co Ltd, controlled by the country’s richest man, Dhanin Chearavanont, aims to raise up to 10 billion baht from transferring several office buildings to the leasehold fund, Krung Thai’s chief executive officer, Somchai Boonnamrisi, told reporters on Monday.

• Is this right time to buy a house in China?

  As China’s house prices continued rising in July, the eighth-consecutive month with fast growth, property market again becomes a hot issue.

  In the latest issue “China Finance” magazine, Sheng Songcheng, Director of Investigation and Statistics Division of China Central Bank, wrote: “Some people say the high housing prices are ‘printed out’, this is not accurate. I rather say that high housing price was caused by ‘market hype’ instead of using the word of ‘print-out’.”

• How a Beige Book Could Shed Light on China’s Shadow Economy

  China’s economy has grown at such an astonishing rate over the past 30 years that even economists have hailed it as a “miracle.” GDP has grown by an average of 10% since 1979, effectively doubling in size every eight years. China now has the second-biggest economy in the world and may overtake the U.S., the world’s largest, within the next decade. But a lingering doubt hangs over all of these heady figures — whether they’re from the past, present or future — because they have originated from a little known branch of the Chinese government known as the National Bureau of Statistics, whose inner workings remain infuriatingly arcane.

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