China's property market has seen soaring investment from foreign institutional investors, driven by strong expectations of renminbi appreciation this year.

According to international real estate advisor CB Richard Ellis, the value of en bloc property transactions in 15 Chinese cities has hit 49.9 billion yuan (US$7.36 billion) in the first-half of this year, among which 19.4 billion yuan came from foreign institutional investors, 10.2 billion yuan from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, and the remaining 20.3 billion yuan from mainland investors.

Total investments in the first six months of this year were almost five-fold of those from the same period of last year.

"Affected by the financial crisis, foreign investors were inactive last year and domestic investors dominated the market. But due to better liquidity and expectations of renminbi appreciation, the situation is just the opposite this year," said Danny Ma, senior director of CB Richard Ellis Research China.

Industry experts say the renminbi will probably appreciated 3 percent this year.

LaSalle Investment Management, a US-based real estate fund, for instance, has been actively seeking opportunities in China, particularly in second-tier cities. Though the fund raised US$2 billion last year, it made no investments at all in 2009. But top management said that they will definitely reach a deal in China this year.

"We are now in talks with several projects in the commercial and industrial sectors," Eric Au, China director of LaSalle told China Daily on Thursday.

For Matt Brailsford, Deputy Managing Director of Savills Beijing, their foreign clients have shown much stronger interest in investing in China's properties, mainly in the office and retail sector.

"But there is no big increase of new faces in market, most of them remain those from Hong Kong and the United States," said Brailsford.

Eric Pang, head of Beijing Investment at Jones Lang LaSalle, said investments will be much more active in the second half.

"At the beginning of May, 12 commercial plots located in the core Central Business District area opened to public bidding, and a large number of reputable institutions and developers are expected to participate in the tendering process," said Pang. "To us, this therefore indicates a strong rebound in sentiment in the Beijing commercial investment market."

(China Daily July 22, 2010)