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Q: Buying a house in China
If a foreigner buys a house in China as an individual do they have to be living in China full time ?
I know a foreigner can't rent it out but I was thinking about buying a place to stay in as a holiday home .
And as per usual I can't get a straight answer from the minister of finance and Narcotics so surly one of you guys have the answer
From my reading up on the subject you have to be living in China at least one year before you can buy a property here.
2013 article...
http://www.maxxelli-consulting.com/home-buying-101-how-can-foreigners-bu...
Update on above article...
http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/blog/shanghai-and-china/shanghai-city/every...
I think if you have the cash, no one will turn it down. No one checked by residence when i bought an apartment. Just visa number to put on the documents. Of course you could just put it in your wife's name.
When I bought mine, the only requisite asked was that I would pay it in full, no bank loans. My passport was used so they could write my name correctly. It sat empty for almost two years until I decided to move in one year ago.
philbravery:
I guess it also will boil down to what province and town /city authority
I bought a house here, I can't rent it out. It doesn't allow me to have a green card yet, me and my wife have our names on the titles, about the only good thing is the price keeps going up, bought for Y4800 per square meter and now the price is Y16,000. So I can sell it and make some money and thats all it is good for.
I would say you probably could in a larger city, in smaller cities it may be more of a hassle simply because they wouldn't know what to do but still should be able to... the banks will not give you a loan though... you will have to pay in full. I bought my place in my name and my wife's name so we could get a mortgage (I don't trust Chinese real estate companies). They had to put on my Chinese name (for the system) with proof of connection from the Chinese name to my legal name via passport. Condo is all paid off now.
Smaller city, cost us 3500 RMB per square meter... very good location near the airport, hotels, speed train station and the largest university... only 10 minutes to downtown. Probably worth about 6-7k RMB per square meter now. My wife wants us to sell and buy a house with a yard (she loves gardening). I told her sure, but I will only buy a house in Canada. So we are considering keeping or selling the condo.
I suggest buying in a lower tier city if possible.
