London is still the biggest draw – but where else in the UK are rich Chinese investors buying property?
- It’s not just in the usual ‘golden postcodes’ where rich Chinese are buying up
- The country may see a post-coronavirus real estate boom
As international travel and investment is on hold until the Covid-19 crisis passes, property companies are looking for what is going to happen when markets, hopefully, bounce back.
Wealthy Chinese have long been reliable investors in the market, and looked to the UK, specifically London, as a stable and reliable point for investment.
London was the top destination for Asian outbound capital in 2018, according to last year’s report from commercial real estate services firm CBRE.
In 2018, 18 per cent of total outbound investment targeted London, which was an increase from 13 per cent in 2017.
Investors from China, Singapore and South Korea accounted for more than 85 per cent of total investment.
As the politics and sentiment of 2019 took a heavy toll on China-US investment, Chinese investors sold billions in US commercial property in the last 12 months.
Yet a trend for growth was seen in the UK. Harrods Estates saw investment from Chinese buyers rise from 2.5 per cent in 2016 to 20 per cent in 2019, and that was from Chinese who are just 1.5 per cent of the UK population.