The Chinese are now the world’s biggest buyers of international property. Chinese property portal Juwai.com claims in a Dubai journal that Chinese investors had acquired US $52 billion of overseas property as of 2014 and are expected to quadruple that sum by 2020. A spokesman for Juwai.com said there was an immense un-tapped demand in China for international real estate, with “many, many, many potential Chinese buyers” ready to invest. Most of the investment to date has gone to the US, Australia, Canada and the UK.

Everywhere, it seems, the amount of Chinese investment money is flowing faster than ever. An Australian real estate site, Domain, says Chinese investors bought $24.3 billion worth of Australian property in 2014-15, twice as much as the year before, and three times more than second-place US investors.

Chinese investment in commercial real estate in the United States is second only to Canada’s. It has grown from $3 billion in 2013 to $8.6 billion in 2015, according to the New England Real Estate Journal.

The Wall Street Journal reports that three of China’s biggest real estate developers, Tianco Group, DongDu International Group and Greenland Group, are planning to increase their activity in Canada, in part capitalizing on the large Chinese populations in Toronto and Vancouver. The paper says some developers are forecasting increased demand among Chinese buyers in those cities for homes and condominiums. The Chinese developers are not expected to market exclusively to Chinese buyers, but they do expect to benefit from brand recognition among the Chinese community.

Canada is particularly attractive to Chinese investors because of the low dollar. A recent report by Colliers International stated that most inbound investment in Canada originates from China and the US. The National Bank of Canada estimated that Chinese buyers accounted for one-third of all real estate purchases in Vancouver, about $12.7 billion, in 2015. Toronto and Vancouver are both recognized internationally as highly livable cities with high-performing economies.

So far, actual Chinese development activity has been limited in Canada. A mid-rise condominium now under construction in Vancouver is the first to be built by a Chinese-controlled company, based in Montreal, where it is also building a 38-storey condo tower. In Toronto, the King Blue project, also under construction, is owned by Greenland Group which is based in Shanghai and owned by the Shanghai city government. Greenland Group is said to be “aggressively” investing in global markets, including Canada, in its strategy to become a global e-commerce power.

While the Chinese seem determined to make their mark on the world through international real estate development, back in China their government is showing itself to be more inward looking. A New York Times report says that a growing trend to use foreign place names in Chinese housing developments is going to be “stamped out.” A proliferation of housing developments with names like Vancouver Forest in Beijing, the Jackson Hole resort community, and Thames Town in Shanghai is coming under scrutiny by the government, which calls the names “bizarre.” The government wants Chinese property developers to use more traditional Chinese names.

Chinese Influence Growing in International Real Estate Investment by Josephine Nolan | Condo.ca