China investment in Malaysia’s residential real estate could double by 2025, driven by the investment market and education, according to Juwai.Com.
“It is not unrealistic... the Credit Suisse Global Wealth 2016 report shows that there are now 1.6 million US dollar millionaires in mainland China.
“Because of their prosperity, these individuals dominate the buying of international property,” said Juwai.Com chief executive officer Carrie Law in a report entitled “Belt and Road drives Chinese real estate investment in Malaysia”.
The report also stated that the China buyers currently held A$13 trillion (RM39.26 trillion) of assets, up by about 16 per cent per year, from A$5.3 trillion in 2011.
On a population-wide scale, wealth per adult has more than quadrupled over the past six years in China. Real property today accounts for 53 per cent of wealth held by China adults.
Juwai.Com said the average monthly views for properties in Malaysia on its platform grew to 21.3 per cent in the first half of last year, from 3.7 per cent in the first half of 2016. Property enquiries more than tripled since 2015 with a median enquiry price of US$235,000 (RM918,850) as at in the first half of last year.
Consumers enquiring about Malaysia in the first half of last year were driven by investment (65.4 per cent), own use (58.5 per cent), education (9.9 per cent) and emigration (3.7 per cent).
Law said compared with other parts of Southeast Asia, Malaysia attracted more buyers from China.
“They are purchasing for their own use, including for the purposes of housing their children who are studying abroad in Malaysia,” said Law.
He also said relative to the global average, Malaysia also attracted more investment-oriented buyers.
In a survey earlier this year, China overseas investors named residential property their favourite asset class.
Nearly three quarters (71.6 per cent) of China overseas investors own residential property overseas. More than 60 per cent intend to invest in real estate overseas by 2020.
“In the case of Malaysia, if macro market and regulatory conditions remain positive, the global trends discussed above will drive growing China investment in local property,” said Law.