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Juwai IQI expands to reach out to Asian cross-border property consumers

Proptech company Juwai IQI launches Juwai.asia, the first global portal for non-China Asian consumers who want to purchase cross-border real estate around the world.

It seems nothing is going to stop Juwai IQI in becoming a domineering force in the property marketplace in Asia. While the world struggles with the Coronavirus pandemic, Juwai IQI has been strategically planning their next move.

The result is a new website Juwai.asia, designed to cater to “ not only the No. 1 buyers' market of China but also the other top cross-border buyers’ markets, which are nearly all in Asia,” said Juwai IQI Executive Chairman Georg Chmiel.

Juwai IQI came about after Juwai.com the leading Chinese website for buyers of overseas property, and IQI Global, the top real estate network in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, merged to create Asiaʼs biggest proptech group in June 2019.

Chinese buyers are already served by the company’s existing portal, Juwai.com, since 2011. Via the two portals, Juwai.asia and Juwai.com, Juwai IQI now services more than 2.8 million listings in 91 countries, accessed by more than 3.3 million monthly users, with a combined value of USD4 trillion.

Asian buyers are most active globally

According to data by Global Mortgage Group, after the Chinese, other Asians are the most active cross-border real estate buyers in the world. Cross-border buyers purchased 500,000 homes in the G7 countries alone in 2019, worth an aggregate value of USD250 billion.¹ While the largest number of cross-border buyers consists of mainland Chinese, significant numbers also come from the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Taiwan, and from Singapore, India, Japan, Korea and Malaysia.

A Knight Frank 2020 Wealth Report also cited Asia as having nearly the same number of ultra-high net worth individuals as Europe, but its population of the wealthy is growing at almost twice the rate as is Europe's: 44 per cent versus 23 per cent, respectively. In a survey conducted before the pandemic, the top five countries where wealthy Asians intend to purchase residential property are the US, UK, Singapore, Australia and Canada.²

Juwai.com said non-China Asian buyers account for 20 per cent of the real estate buying enquiries that it receives, compared to China's 71 per cent, the Americas' four per cent, Europe's three per cent, and the Middle East’s and Africa's one per cent.

Asian buyers dominate international real estate purchase

In the US, Asians including mainland and Hong Kong Chinese invested USD257.3 billion in residential real estate over the past decade.³ That far exceeds the next largest buyer group, Canadians, who acquired only about half that amount, USD129 billion, of US real estate during the same period.

In the UK, foreigners are the predominant buyers of London’s prime property market, accounting for 55 per cent of prime sales and spending £8.2 billion in Greater London during the second half of 2019.⁴

In Australia, Asian investors, including mainland and Hong Kong Chinese, were officially cleared to acquire USD135 billion of real estate over the past decade.⁵ Apart from mainland and Hong Kong Chinese, the biggest Asian investors were from Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea.

In New Zealand, Asian investors, including mainland and Hong Kong Chinese, in 2018 alone acquired homes worth USD1.1 billion. That's nearly double the USD620 million invested by Australians and nearly 10 times the USD140 million acquired by UK buyers. Among the biggest sources of buyers are Singapore, Taiwan and Korea.

In the UAE, Asian buyers from India, China and Pakistan form the most foreign property investors, apart from those from other Persian Gulf countries. Asians invest US$6.23 billion per year into Dubai alone, according to the most recent official data from the Dubai Land Department.⁶

In Malaysia, eight of the top 10 foreign real estate investor groups hail from other parts of Asia. Official data reveals that that citizens from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, Japan, Bangladesh, Korea and Singapore acquire more visas and also more likely to acquire Malaysian real estate than those from any other part of the world.⁷

Asia leads the recovery from COVID-19

"The Coronavirus pandemic has dealt a painful blow to economies all over the world. One bright spot for real estate markets is that the pandemic has also given added motivation to cross-border buyers from Asia.

"Wherever in Asia and wherever in the world do you want to purchase, now we can help you. Juwai.asia enables you to find your future home. It will connect you with local market agents and sources of financing. And, it will provide you with expert advice and market data,” said Juwai IQI Executive Chairman Georg Chmiel. 

According to Juwai IQI Group Executive Director Daniel Ho, "Real estate agents and developers can now use Juwai IQI’s end-to-end property advertising and sales solution to reach China’s 1.4 billion people and the rest of Asia’s 2.7 billion consumers.”

Ho added that the new portal enables developers and agents to tap into the total Asian market and will serve as a one-stop solution combining online and offline marketing and sales.

The new Juwai.asia portal is currently accessible in three languages, English, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, with further languages to come.

Sources: 1. Proprietary data, Global Mortgage Group. G7 countries include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States; 2. Knight Frank. Wealth Report 2020; 3. National Association of Realtors; 4. Hamptons International as cited in Lawford, M. (2020, May 11). Why coronavirus could end London's status as a safe haven for foreign property buyers. The Telegraph. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/uk/coronavirus-could-end-londons-status-safe-haven-foreign-property/; 5. Foreign Investment Review Board; 6 Dubai targets Dh1bn of Chinese real estate investment in 2019. (2019, January 29); 7. Ministry of Tourism and Culture Malaysia