Overhearing young Shanghai’ers speaking on international affairs their conclusion is that America is now “dangerous”, while Shanghai is “still good”. And it is still good, and getting better. People play the real estate market like a casino game and there isn’t the sense that it will stop even if the purported real estate bubble pops, it is still a game just you require more savvy to succeed.
The government seems to be getting serious about their efforts to cool the residential market and after years of trying it appears to be working – secondary sales prices appear to be dropping in some of the most heated markets, including Shanghai. But the jury is still out on what this will mean for the other real estate asset classes. Some see a turn to office properties but the majority feel that a greater amount of attention will be directed towards retail, with experts ,such and Cushman & Wakefield’s regional CEO Sanjay Kumar, predicting that this will produce car-crashlike results for some but spectacular returns for those that get it right. Currently the largest real estate companies in China are venturing into cinemas, shopping centres and, a very few, into offices.