Full story available @ The Province – link below
Despite the current turmoil in the Chinese stock market, experts are wagering that real estate in B.C. will be insulated from its effects in the short term.
It’s been three weeks since China’s most prominent exchange, the Shanghai stock index, reached a 52-week high of 5,178.19, then began a sharp descent to close at 3,507.19 on Wednesday. But analysts say B.C. shouldn’t expect the slide to shake up the local housing market any time soon.
Yves Tiberghien, director of the University of B.C.’s Institute of Asian Research, said that because the market surged only recently — about 150 per cent over the past year — most investors who’ve diversified into Canadian real estate didn’t lose wealth as the market plummeted.
“Anyone who has been in the stock market in China more than three months is still sitting on profit,” he said. “And so the big real-estate companies or private entrepreneurs or officials who are taking money out — all those are not ‘new-new’ rich — they’re people who have been sitting on money for a while.”
Eva Busza, vice-president of research and programs at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said research suggests that 80 per cent of the investors in China’s stock market are retail investors, smaller “mom-and-pop” companies, many who only recently began buying up stock by borrowing from brokers.
Full Story Here: http://www.theprovince.com/news/Turmoil+Chinese+stock+market+likely+affect+Vancouver+real/11198728/story.html
