New Chinese real estate marketplace offers international listings

Tencent, an internet provider that operates the Chinese equivalents of Facebook and WhatsApp, and real estate site Juwai.com, launched their partnership in Beijing at the end of December with the goal of better sharing real estate listings from countries outside of China.

The new platform, haiwai.house.qq.com, will give users of Tencent's current real estate platform access to overseas listings from Juwai.com, in a bid to make buyers “empowered to make informed investment decisions”.

Juwai.com created the new channel and will provide customer service to consumers, while Tencent will host the new site, enabling its 800 million users to reach real estate content from within their various services, such as WeChat.

Yu Kai, general manager for Tencent real estate, commented: "With the growth of China's export-oriented economy, with both travellers and students more often going abroad, and with the domestic property market appearing overvalued, we see a significant increase in demand for overseas property. 

"This partnership with Juwai.com will provide our users with information on overseas buying, listings, and related services." 

Charles Pittar, CEO of Juwai.com, said that Chinese consumers had gone from being “nearly invisible in international property markets” over the past five years, to being “the number one buyers in almost every country and continent”.

“Tencent has created a full-fledged real estate marketplace that includes new and second-hand homes in China, financing, home improvement and now, homes in other countries – courtesy of Juwai.com,” he added.

“This is a great result for Chinese consumers who want to make international investments in an informed way.

“It’s also wonderful for our international clients who want to ensure they are accessing China in a broad and considered way.”

 [Related: Chinese market doesn’t sleep, says Ellis]