Here’s a smartphone app that shows Chinese millennials how to shop for international real estate

Mainland Chinese real estate listing site Uoolu (有路) is seeking to create a safer way for middle and upper class Chinese to invest in overseas real estate, according to its founder and chief executive.

The key to winning customers, according to 34-year-old Huang Xiaodan, who founded the start-up two years ago, is to provide a higher value service where users can be assured of the quality of the real estate listings on the platform.

“We don’t care much of the quantity, but quality,” said Huang. “Being small doesn’t matter. What customers terribly lack is a sense of security.”

Every month the app attracts between 800,000 to 1 million active users and transacts roughly 200 million yuan (US$29.24 million) worth of overseas property on its platform.

A JLL report showed that Chinese outbound real estate transactions rose to US$7.5 billion in the first quarter, up 84 per cent from a year earlier.

And as an increasing number of middle-class mainlanders scout for properties around the world, unscrupulous websites have been taking advantage of inexperienced buyers, often by exploiting the information gap.

For example, according to Huang, some Chinese agents peddle houses in Europe with prices far exceeding the sellers’ asking price, pocketing the difference. In other instances, agents have been known to market homes that are built by inexperience or unqualified developers.