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I don't think it's trivially easy to get money out of the country, so that might be part of it. Another thing is that for many people, being able to buy any rea

I don't think it's trivially easy to get money out of the country, so that might be part of it. Another thing is that for many people, being able to buy any real estate is attractive, even when you don't really get to "own" it in the western sense, it's still a lot like ownership (you own it for some number of years then have to give it back IIRC).

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
To be sure, much of the money I used for the downpayment on my house in the USA was earned in China, so...there are ways to get it out. Foreigners follow different rules, however, but Chinese citizens still had $50k/year quotas they could use, over a few family members it added up, and that wasn't the only way to get money out. China practices 99 year leases, although everyone is expecting those leases to be rolled over with minimal amounts of money. When that didn't happen on earlier and shorter 40 or so year leases (made before the current policy was set), the central government had to step in and forced them to be rolled over, otherwise the rest of the country would have panicked.