More Chinese property investors are eyeing the German city of Berlin as a new hot destination in Europe, partly due to the slumping real estate market in the Chinese mainland, an expert told the Global Times on Monday.
A report from the Shanghai Morning Post in October said that many Chinese investors had shifted their money from the domestic stock market to the real estate market in Berlin.
Diamona & Harnisch (D&H) is a Berlin-based real estate developer that is selling at least 4 projects in Berlin. CEO Alexander Harnisch told the Global Times on Sunday that the real estate market in Berlin has been expanding in a stable manner for about 5 years, and foreign investors have been a driving force.
According to Harnisch, the company's biggest group of overseas clients used to be from Russia, but in the past few years, Chinese clients have become the company's largest overseas client community, accounting for about 20 percent of all overseas clients.
Harnisch noted that Berlin offers several advantages for overseas investors, including those from China.
"First, the mortgage rate for Berlin-based properties stands at about 2 percent, much lower than in China. Second, Berlin rental yields are relatively high among European cities," he noted.
A real estate broker surnamed Fu, who is based in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, told the Global Times on Monday that the real estate market in China is in recession, and that's driven Chinese investors to turn to overseas projects.
The National Bureau of Statistics said on Saturday that real estate investment in China increased 1.3 percent year-on-year from January to November this year, falling back from the 2 percent growth in the first 10 months this year.
Chinese investors began flocking to London around 2014 to invest in property there, but as prices in the city have risen, they have turned to other targets, according to Fu.
