AXA to enter China's property market

AXA Real Estate Investment Managers (AXA REIM) has signed an agreement with Ping An Trust & Investment Co, Ping An Insurance's investment arm, to cooperate in China's property market.

AXA REIM, which was under Europe's No 2 insurer AXA Group, hopes to have a share in the country's high-end housing market with the help of a local company familiar with the Chinese property market, according to a July 27 announcement

Central China Real Estate Gets $99 Million Funding

HONG KONG -- Property developer Central China Real Estate Ltd. has secured a US$99 million investment in a deal led by private-equity firm FountainVest Partners that bets on rapid growth in China's second-tier cities.

Investors greeted the infusion of capital by sending Central China Real Estate's shares almost 9% higher Wednesday to close at 2.60 Hong Kong dollars (about 34 U.S. cents).

Chinese property stocks have rebounded sharply this year as Beijing pumped money into the economy to fight a slowdown. Analysts say a flood of cheap bank loans is fueling housing sales and pushing up land prices.

Since the start of the year, Central China Real Estate's shares have more than tripled, but they still remain below their initial offering price of HK$2.75 in June 2008, when the company raised US$176 million amid rocky market conditions.

Are China's smaller cities a bargain for investors?

SINGAPORE/BEIJING (Reuters) - Wuhan, Chongqing and Chengdu aren't exactly names that roll off the tongue for foreign investors in China's real estate, but these cities may offer more bang for the buck than their more-famous coastal cousins or capital Beijing.

Helped partly by the government's "Go West" policy and their less export-focused economies, Chinese cities in the country's interior have posted higher per-capita-income growth than Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the past year.

Along the coast, the port city of Tianjin is fast becoming the business center for northern China as authorities move to revitalize what was once the country's industrial heartland. Dalian and Shenyang are other northern cities growing rapidly.

Property bubble building in China

So far during this global recession, Beijing has moved quickly to pump billions into the economy to keep it flowing. Their rescue plan was focused on modifying the export based economy into an inward looking economy while the global recession passes. To a large degree it's worked. Exports are down, obviously, but the government has managed to keep growth at a relatively high level though maybe not as high as required to keep up with the always heavy influx of new workers.

Their own stimulus may be running out of gas and it's highly probably they will need to act again because it's wishful thinking to believe Western consumers will come back in the near term. China has the money to invest internally but still, it's a stress and a radical change from the export bubble economy.