Show Entire Article
I was interviewing Mr. Zhou, one of China's largest real estate developers, when he started to share his investing strategies with me. "I never buy Chinese stocks. Who can trust the accounting? It is far safer to buy real estate. There are too many Chinese without adequate housing so demand will always outstrip supply.”
As we sat in his enormous living room, Mr. Zhou continued to tell me why he preferred to buy homes rather than put money into the stock market, “There are no annual property taxes, so I just buy homes and leave them empty to resell at some point. At the end of the day, if things go wrong, you still have tangible assets if you buy property."
Many Chinese investors hold similar views: they deem real estate as the safest investment in a country ravaged by accounting fraud. After all, even famed investors like billionaire John Paulson lost $340 million according to Fortune Magazine investing in companies hit by accounting scandals like Sino-Forest .
Mr. Zhou’s investment strategies indicate the Chinese real estate sector is being driven as much by a belief in the sector as a fear of other sectors.
Page 1 of 4 | Next PageShow Entire Article
CN;SHI News & Analysis
DATA IS REAL-TIME EXCEPT NOTED WITH *
* DATA DELAYED AT LEAST 15 MINUTES