The numbers are in! And they’re big ones. I think by now you all are picking up on how much I like seeing BIG SUMS of money in blog posts, the IREI newsfeeds and our premium news service, IREN.
For starters, anyone notice how often a Chinese developer or a Chinese investor kept popping up throughout 2013? I remember in one week I had three headlines.
Pretty hard to miss when these firms are making billion-dollar headlines and hefty million-dollar deals. So what’s the grand total of their spending during 2013?
Chinese international investment activity has increased by 124 percent to $7.6 billion in 2013, according to research from Jones Lang LaSalle. This compares with $3.3 billion in 2012 and $2.9 billion in 2011.
Whoa! Did your guess come close?
The U.K. and the U.S. real estate markets attracted most of this capital from China in 2013; the United Kingdom received $2.3 billion (up from $1.3 billion in 2012) and the United States received $3.1 billion (up from $264 million in 2012). The office sector continues to dominate as the preferred asset class among Chinese commercial real estate investors active overseas, accounting for 85 percent of all investments they made in 2013.
New York City and London are the markets that attracted the most money from China. Chinese investors spent $2.9 billion in New York City, representing a considerable increase on 2012 when they spent $200 million in the city. Transactions include Fosun International acquiring One Chase Manhattan Plaza for $725 million and Chinese real estate tycoon Zhang Xin becoming part owner of the GM Building in midtown Manhattan.
London attracted $2.1 billion from China. Transactions include Chinese insurance firm Ping An buying the Lloyd’s of London Building for $387 million.
In Asia Pacific, Chinese money focused on Australia and Singapore, which attracted $700 million and $1 billion, respectively. In 2012, Australia attracted $209 million from China, while Singapore did not see any investment from China.
There is also an increasing interest in retail as well as residential land development. The full story can be found in this week’s IREN.
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Andrea Waitrovich is editor of IREN and web content editor of Institutional Real Estate, Inc.
