Shanghai's booming property market is ready to get up another head of steam as the city threatens to eclipse Hong Kong as a financial centre, some analysts believe.
It is only a matter of time before China makes the yuan freely convertible, which would sideline Hong Kong and attract the wheelers and dealers directly to the northern power brokers.
When it happens Shanghai will be on track to become a super city, according to property analysts - more than just concrete and glass but a metropolis that blends culture, enterprise and the architectural glamour of its 1930s.
Investors who feel they have missed out on the Shanghai property boom after dramatic price appreciation in recent years should look ahead, says Andrew Ness, head of research at CB Richard Ellis. Shanghai ranks 21st among major cities in terms of most expensive retail rents, well behind Seoul, New York, London and Tokyo. With many newly wealthy Shanghainese climbing the social ladder, the city will close the gap with the elite over the next few years.
'Envisioning Shanghai 25 years hence, I see a city fully on par with Tokyo and in some respects surpassing Tokyo as an international financial and business centre,' Mr Ness says. 'It is inevitable that the importance of Shanghai as a financial centre, with a population which is more than twice that of Hong Kong, and a land area three times the size, will eventually come to equal and then surpass that of Hong Kong.'
The scale of the Shanghai's transformation poses a challenge to investors: how to uncover the bargains across the sprawling city and capitalise on rising land prices.