Originally Posted by
Taiwaned
It is now looking more and more like we would be moving to China for a couple of years. Instead of renting we are wondering about purchasing an apartment and selling it off when we leave 2-3 years later.
Is this possible?
Any serious risks?
Any recent changes in law?
1) Legally possible only after living here for one year. If you are ethnic Chinese, from Taiwan, etc, you may be able to circumvent this.
2) Serious risk of losing money. Actually, for a short period of time as you describe, it is quite likely that you will lose money after you figure in transaction costs/taxes/financing/etc.
3) Chinese gov't, as part of effort to keep propping up the residential real estate market, rescinded tougher rules on foreign buyers instituted back in 2006. Until end of this year, things are more relaxed for foreigners who want to buy. No word on whether this relaxation will revert back to restrictive on Jan 1.
As somebody with some experience in the Chinese real estate and construction market, I strongly advise you to NOT consider any purchase of property here, unless you are planning to reside in China in your purchase for a minimum of 5-6 years. Even then, you would have to be careful where you purchased and for what settlement price. Asking prices for property in major cities is unreasonably high, given the current economic conditions. On the other hand, rents are lower compared to a year or so ago, particularly for upscale properties of the kind you would feel comfortable in--this subset of the market is generally overbuilt. The best time to have purchased property for capital appreciation purposes in the first-tier cities was probably 2003-2005...after that, prices started escalating too much too fast.