World’s fastest-growing housing markets were in Toronto, Reykjavik, and ...... Wuxi?
Wuxi, near Shanghai, named as the Chinese city to see the highest growth in prices, ranking it third on the global list after Toronto, and Reykjavík in Iceland
Twenty one of the world’s 50 fastest growing housing markets, based on price, are in China, according to a latest report, rekindling fears the domestic sector is overheating as money continues to pour into bricks and mortar.
Complied by research house Hurun Report, the study highlights growth in global home prices in the 12 months to June 30, with 42 of the 50 cities under the spotlight from 12 countries it examined, being hit with price rises of more that 10 per cent in the period.
The five cities to suffer the fastest growing prices were Toronto, Reykjavík, Wuxi, Hong Kong and Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan Province.
Six Chinese cities were named in top 10, while that total of 21 makes the country the most listed, followed by the US (Seattle, Orlando, Dallas, Denver, New York, Sacramento and Miami), Germany (Berlin, Hanover, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg), Canada (Toronto, Hamilton, Victoria and Vancouver), Australia (Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra), Ireland and New Zealand with 2 cities each.
Maybe surprisingly, the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi – around 140 kilometres or a 2-hour drive, west of Shanghai – overtook Hong Kong, recently dubbed “the world’s most expensive housing market”, to become the Chinese city so see the highest growth in home prices, as it is much less known than other major population centres such as Beihing and Shanghai..
Wuxi, in the southern Chinese province of Jiangsu, borders two other large cities, Changzhou to the west and Suzhou to the east, and saw a 22. 9 per cent rise in prices in the period, exceeding Hong Kong’s 20.8 per cent rise, according to Hurun Report, which is best-known for its rankings of the richest people in China.
The other four Chinese cities in top 10 are Zhengzhou, the capital of east-central China’s Henan province (+20.2 per cent), Changsha in Hunan province (+18.5 per cent), Guangzhou (+17.9 per cent) in Guangdong province and Shijiazhuang (+16.1 per cent) in Hebei.
“Global asset allocation is one of the biggest trends now for China’s high-net-worth individuals, led by real estate,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report.
Jinan, Hefei, Wuhan, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Xi’an, Fuzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Nanning, Chongqing, Beijing, Qingdao, Nanchang and Shanghai are those ranked outside the top 10 but also among the top 50, said the report.
David Hong, head of research at E-house (China) Enterprise Group, however, suggested the rise in Wuxi’s property prices “could be just temporary”.
“It could be [a case of] some high-end projects being opened there during the period which pushed up the increase in housing prices, or just that people who could not invest in properties in bigger cities due to government restrictions, have shifted their focus to smaller ones.”
