New York Times (August 18)
“For decades, buying property was considered a safe investment in China. Now, instead of building a foundation of wealth for the country’s middle class, real estate has become a source of discontent and anger.”
Tags: Anger, Buying, China, Discontent, Foundation, Investment, Middle class, Property, Real estate, Safe, Wealth
Bloomberg (June 30)
“The Federal Reserve is cooling off the red-hot housing market as it fights to curb inflation by driving up interest rates.” The ensuing “housing slowdown is helping to solve the US real estate market’s most intractable problem: tight inventory.” New sellers are entering the market at a faster pace while there are “fewer buyers competing.” As a result, “the number of active US listings jumped 18.7% in June from a year earlier, the largest annual increase in data going back to 2017.”
Tags: Buyers, Cooling off, Fed, Housing market, Inflation, Interest rates, Intractable, Inventory, Listings, Real estate, Red-hot, Sellers, Slowdown, U.S.
Reuters (June 13)
Despite tensions with the North, things are “upbeat” in Seoul. “Compared to pre-pandemic times, the capital city feels richer and more vibrant. A recent boom in local stocks, cryptocurrencies and real estate have spurred the city’s elite, unable to travel, to flex their wealth at home…. Luxury sales topped $14 billion in 2021, making South Korea one of the few markets worldwide to surpass 2019 levels.”
Tags: Boom, Cryptocurrencies, Elite, Luxury sales, Markets, North Korea, Pre-pandemic, Real estate, Richer, Seoul, Stocks, Tensions, Travel, Upbeat, Vibrant, Wealth
Bloomberg (May 24)
“For decades, the surest way for ordinary Chinese families to grow their wealth and guarantee future financial stability was to put most of their money into real estate, and the rest into the stock market. Now, even those with money to spare are clutching onto their cash, not willing to take a chance in the Covid-battered Chinese economy.”
Tags: Battered, Cash, Chance, China, Clutching, Covid, Families, Financial stability, Future, Guarantee, Money, Ordinary, Real estate, Spare, Stock market, Wealth
McKinsey Global Institute (November 15)
Since 2000, net worth has tripled “to $510 trillion, or 6.1 times global GDP, with China accounting for one-third of global growth.” The increase “mainly reflects valuation gains in real assets, especially real estate, rather than investment in productive assets that drive our economies.” Remarkably, the “historic link between the growth of net worth and the growth of GDP no longer holds.”
Tags: $510 trillion, 2000, China, Economies, GDP, Global growth, Investment, Net worth, Productive assets, Real assets, Real estate, Valuation gains
Bloomberg (October 25)
“China’s economy risks slowing faster than global investors realize as President Xi Jinping’s push to cut its reliance on real estate and regulate sectors from education to technology combine with a power shortage and the pandemic.”
Tags: China, Economy, Education, Investors, Power shortage, Real estate, Regulate, Reliance, Risks, Sectors, Slowing, Technology, Xi
Wall Street Journal (October 18)
“China’s economy grew 4.9% in the third quarter from a year earlier, slowing sharply from the previous quarter’s 7.9% growth rate, as power shortages and supply-chain problems added to the impact from Beijing’s efforts to rein in the real estate and technology sectors.” A slowdown was expected, but results fell short of “the 5.1% growth forecast” economists provided last week.
Tags: Beijing, China, Economy, Forecast, Growth, Impact, Power shortages, Problems, Real estate, Slowdown, Supply chain, Technology
Bloomberg (October 13)
“The vital question for many investors has been whether the problems for speculative real estate will cause broader contagion, either through cascading losses in the financial system or through economic weakness.” The former remains unlikely, but “the second — an economic slowdown of which Evergrande is both a cause and a symptom — grows more likely with time.”
Tags: Cascading, Contagion, Economic weakness, Evergrande, Financial system, Investors, Losses, Real estate, Slowdown, Speculative, Vital
San Francisco Chronicle (May 16)
“Pandemic or not, restaurants can’t find rental space.” The real estate landscape is “nearly as heated as pre-pandemic levels.” One would expect “tons of options on the market at reasonable rates, but there are few deals—and competition for what’s available is intense…. Landlords, meanwhile, are hesitant to offer discounts because they’ve lacked income over the pandemic themselves.”
Tags: Competition, Deals, Discounts, Heated, Income, Landlords, Market, Pandemic, Pre-pandemic levels, Real estate, Rental space, Restaurants
Inc (November Issue)
“The real estate business is finally getting renovated, as a new wave of startups build property-technology platforms that improve or simplify the complicated process of buying, selling, renting, or owning a home…. Since 2013, annual investment in U.S. proptech companies has grown at a rate five times that of investment in all U.S. businesses. In 2019, investment in U.S. proptech is on pace to exceed $10 billion.”
Tags: Buying, Homes, Investment, Owning, Platforms, Proptech, Real estate, Renting, Selling, Startups, U.S.
