Getting in on the next bubble in Chinese real estate.

by Kris_Tuttle on June 19, 2009

Recent inputs regard­ing investor inter­est in Shang­hai prop­erty shows it’s again run­ning very high.  There are some key struc­tural rea­sons this is prob­a­bly a good time to be con­sid­er­ing tak­ing some posi­tions here:

  1. The Chi­nese are now mak­ing it eas­ier to buy prop­erty.  A recent offer­ing calls for investors to come up with a 30% down­pay­ment to receive a 4% loan for the remain­ing 70%.  The 3% deed tax and 0.05% stamp duty is now very low.  The cap­i­tal gain tax has been reduced (for resales within 2 years) to 5% of the gain ver­sus what had been 5% of the entire amount.
  2. Recent pol­icy changes to allow the local cur­rency to appre­ci­ate grad­u­ally adds an addi­tional kicker to returns to exter­nal investors that makes this even more attrac­tive.  Although exchange rates are unpre­dictable, most feel that the RMB has been kept down struc­turally and will tend to trend up over time ver­sus other major currencies.

Cau­tion on China is always a good idea and we know that there is still inven­tory to be worked off in a num­ber of major cities there.  How­ever the global investor appet­tite for this asset class looks like it will be aided and abet­ted by changes in deal terms and exchange rates.

Many investors have gone to China or Hong Kong to cash in this trend over the last decade or so.  Those of us want­ing to exploit this trend in a less whole­hearted way might look to the new Clay­more China Real Estate ETF (TAO) for a sim­ple way to have expo­sure.  We can’t speak to the qual­ity of this ETF but in a mar­ket offer­ing few such choices this one is at least available.

[Dis­clo­sure: At the time of this writ­ing we hold a few shares of TAO in our own and man­aged accounts.]

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