Focus had a financial article this morning of some interest. There is a trend going on with Chinese individuals arriving in Germany, and buying property as an investment situation. Their big interest? Apartments.
Years ago, when I was in need of an apartment in the Bitburg area, I found this great deal and the landlord came out to show me the place. It was a 8-apartment building. It wasn't a case of one landlord owning the whole building.....but individual landlords. There had been an investment opportunity and this guy had a chance to buy one-eighth of the building while it was under construction. For long-term investment, it made sense.
The Chinese are using the same basic formula. They show up.....find a couple of situations up for sale.....bring investment money into Germany, and have a sum of money which comes to them each month via apartment rentals. How they moved the money out of China? Yeah, that might be a question best left out of the story. My humble guess is that they found some different ways to clear the money via a third-party and looked around for a place where you could be safe and no one asked about your money.
The curious part to this story....is that the chief area that the Chinese are interested in....is Berlin and Frankfurt. Frankfurt....more so.
I didn't realize the number of Chinese now living in the Frankfurt area....listed for 2016 (by the article from Focus) to around 14,000. It's a fair sum of folks.
Long-term? One has to think that the number of Chinese in the Frankfurt region will continue to grow, and that more investment into apartment ownership will be part of the story. In another decade, the population of Chinese around Frankfurt will probably double, and more apartments will be part of the Chinese-investment scheme.
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