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Four things you should know about Chinese real estate investors and the internet

Every businessperson dreams of finding a niche to fill that lets them: 1) solve problems for their customers and 2) make a good living at the same time.

The best real estate agents do this.

One reason Juwai.com has grown so quickly since our founding in 2010 is that we do it, too. We help both agents and developers connect with Chinese property buyers. Both groups are happy, and the market is large enough that – even charging a very fair price – we can be profitable.

Here’s how big that market is: In 2012, real estate agents around the world earned, as a result of transactions with Chinese buyers, an estimated US$1.2 billion in commission.

Chinese buyers are the fastest growing buyer group in most of the 54 countries from which Juwai.com lists property, and they spent US$30 billion on international property in 2012. (We’re talking about individual real estate investors here, not big portfolio-sized investments by institutions and investment funds.)

If your niche involves helping property owners reach Chinese buyers, here are five facts about Chinese real estate investors and the internet that you should know:

FACT 1: China has more than twice as many internet users as any other country.

That’s right. Please refer to the comparison graph above. You could take everyone who is online in the United States, Japan and India – 3 famously online countries – and put them all together. They still wouldn’t add up to as many internet users as there are in China right now.

FACT 2: China’s population of 1.3 billion means its number of internet users could more than double in the years to come as penetration rates increase.

Every year, some 56 million Chinese became new internet users. At this rate, it only takes two years to add a population of internet users the size of Japan's to China’s online population.

FACT 3: Wealthy Chinese rely on the internet the most.

They tell researchers that the internet is their number one source of information.

65% of high net worth Chinese call the internet their “preferred” source of information, and 83% use it every single day. That’s why it’s so important to market your real estate online. It’s the best way to reach a very large and growing audience of potential buyers.

FACT 4: 90 million Chinese search for property online every month.

This is another indicator that the web is the way to reach Chinese property buyers with your listings.

FACT 5: Today there are nearly as many pages online in Chinese as there are in any other language.

In just a couple of years, Chinese will edge into the top spot, becoming the No. 1 language on the internet.

This is one reason Chinese, even those who have been educated abroad and speak another language fluently, still prefer to search for property on Chinese-language websites.

If you aren’t marketing your properties and your brand in Chinese, you are invisible to these buyers. You may be missing many opportunities for inquiries and sales.