The fast-growing housing market of Wuxi - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf

Traditionally Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou were benchmark cities when looking at the housing market in China. But when you want to know where global wealth is growing fastest, you might have to look at a few unfamiliar names, including Wuxi, overtaking Hong Kong as the most expensive city, says Rupert Hoogewerf, chief researcher of the latest Hurun Report, according to the South China Morning Post.

The South China Morning Post:

Complied by research house Hurun Report, the study highlights growth in global home prices in the 12 months to June 30, with 42 of the 50 cities under the spotlight from 12 countries it examined, being hit with price rises of more that 10 per cent in the period.

The five cities to suffer the fastest growing prices were Toronto, Reykjavík, Wuxi, Hong Kong and Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan Province. 

Six Chinese cities were named in top 10, while that total of 21 makes the country the most listed, followed by the US (Seattle, Orlando, Dallas, Denver, New York, Sacramento and Miami), Germany (Berlin, Hanover, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg), Canada (Toronto, Hamilton, Victoria and Vancouver), Australia (Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra), Ireland and New Zealand with 2 cities each... 

Maybe surprisingly, the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi – around 140 kilometres or a 2-hour drive, west of Shanghai – overtook Hong Kong, recently dubbed “the world’s most expensive housing market”, to become the Chinese city so see the highest growth in home prices, as it is much less known than other major population centres such as Beijing and Shanghai.. 

Wuxi, in the southern Chinese province of Jiangsu, borders two other large cities, Changzhou to the west and Suzhou to the east, and saw a 22. 9 per cent rise in prices in the period, exceeding Hong Kong’s 20.8 per cent rise, according to Hurun Report, which is best-known for its rankings of the richest people in China. 

The other four Chinese cities in top 10 are Zhengzhou, the capital of east-central China’s Henan province (+20.2 per cent), Changsha in Hunan province (+18.5 per cent), Guangzhou (+17.9 per cent) in Guangdong province and Shijiazhuang (+16.1 per cent) in Hebei. 

“Global asset allocation is one of the biggest trends now for China’s high-net-worth individuals, led by real estate,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and chief researcher of Hurun Report. 

Jinan, Hefei, Wuhan, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Xi’an, Fuzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Nanning, Chongqing, Beijing, Qingdao, Nanchang and Shanghai are those ranked outside the top 10 but also among the top 50, said the report.

More in the South China Morning Post.

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