Real Estate

Lanzhou New Area, in Gansu province, embodies China’s twin dreams of catapulting its poorer western regions into the economic mainstream through an orgy of infrastructure spending and cementing its place at the heart of Asia through a revival of the ancient Silk Road.

Hundreds of hills on the dry, sandy Loess Plateau were flattened by bulldozers to create the 315-square-mile city. But today, cranes stand idle in planned industrial parks while newly built residential blocks loom empty. Streets are mostly deserted. Life-size replicas of the Parthenon and the Sphinx sit surrounded by wasteland, monuments to profligacy.

Chinese buyers spent more than $17 billion on US commercial real estate between 2010 and 2015, and during that same period at least $93 billion— went into US homes, according to a study by the Asia Society and the Rosen Consulting Group.

"More than any foreign investor other than Canada, China stands out for the breadth, depth, and speed of its participation in the US real estate market," according to the report released on Monday, Breaking Ground : Chinese Investment in US Real Estate.

Inventories of China's 137 real estate companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses exceeded 3 trillion yuan ($461.3 billion) in 2015, according to statistics from Wind, a financial data provider.

Of them, the top five listed real estate companies by market value took up 42 percent of the total inventories.

Beijing's subcenter - Tongzhou

Beijing has relaxed restrictions on foreigners buying real estate, part of a slew of measures to adjust a sluggish property market.

According to previous policies, foreigners were required to work in Beijing for more than a year before becoming eligible to buy property for residential purposes in the capital of China.