China · CHN · snapshot 2026-10-06
China
Measured
Currency movement
-7.6%
The local currency bought more euros at the end of this window than at the start — a more expensive entry for a euro-denominated buyer, and a better exit for anyone already holding the asset.
What it does not show. It is not a forecast and not a property return. A currency move and a price move are different facts and routinely point opposite ways; nothing here says which way either is going next.
Foreign-buyer rules
2 of 2 published rules apply
These are the restrictions a foreign buyer meets before price is even discussed — approval regimes, surcharges, ownership limits.
What it does not show. It is not a completeness claim. A rule we have not read is not a rule that does not exist, and this row counts what is cited, not what is in force.
Cost of money
3%
The price of money to banks in this jurisdiction, which sets the floor everything else is priced from.
What it does not show. It is emphatically not a mortgage quote. What a non-resident is offered is a different number, usually much higher, and the gap between them is where a market's financing story actually lives.
Supply against absorption
Not measured
No statistics agency for this market has been read and cleared for republication. Two have been anywhere: Canada and Singapore. The data very likely exists; the permission to publish it has not been established.
Residential price cycle
137.7 against a 2015 base of 100
House prices have risen faster than consumer prices since 2015 — the market is above its own inflation-adjusted level of that year.
What it does not show. It is a position, not a direction, and it is not a valuation. Deflating by consumer prices says nothing about what the asset yields or what credit costs, and a market can sit above its 2015 level for years without that meaning anything is due.
Valuation against its own history
Not measured
The OECD house-price dataset does not carry this territory, so there is no ratio to state. The dataset covers its members and a set of partner economies, and most of the world is in neither.
On the market now
Not measured
No listings platform has been read for this market. The one platform this site can read covers Russian cities only, and inventing a count for anywhere else would be worse than an empty row.
No dossier has been written for this market yet. What follows is the measured layers and the rules, each with its source — not an argument about whether to be here. A market reaches this page as soon as two layers can be cited, because an unwritten thesis is a reason to publish less, not a reason to publish nothing.
The series behind those figures, and the workings
Currency
-7.6%
Twelve-month move in CNY per euro, 8.3586 in 2025-09 to 7.7242 in 2026-09. Positive means the local currency weakened. Source: European Central Bank monthly reference averages.
7.5554
Latest daily fixing, CNY per euro on 2026-10-06. Shown because it is what a reader would see if they went and looked; the window above uses monthly averages, which one volatile day cannot move.
Against other base currencies
A market is cheap or dear relative to the capital entering it, so the same twelve months read differently depending on what the buyer holds. Both legs are quoted per euro, so the euro cancels and no third source is involved.
| Buyer holds | CNY per unit, 2025-09 | CNY per unit, 2026-09 | Twelve-month move |
|---|---|---|---|
| US dollar (USD) | 7.1245 | 6.7090 | -5.8% |
| Pound sterling (GBP) | 9.6193 | 9.0012 | -6.4% |
| Swiss franc (CHF) | 8.9401 | 8.1912 | -8.4% |
| Singapore dollar (SGD) | 5.5445 | 5.2718 | -4.9% |
| Australian dollar (AUD) | 4.6972 | 4.7781 | +1.7% |
Cost of money
3%
Central bank policy rate, 2026-08. Source: Bank for International Settlements.
This is the price of money to banks, not the price of money to a non-resident buying a building. The gap between those two is where a market’s financing story actually lives, and it is not in this number. A mortgage quote for a foreign buyer depends on the lender, the asset and the borrower, and no public dataset carries it.
BIS terms permit this figure on a free page and state that nothing in their statistics constitutes investment advice. They also allow inclusion in a commercial product only where it adds no charge, so this series is published here and is not priced into any paid work.
Background
Annual national statistics from the World Bank, under a licence that permits reuse with attribution. They describe the country; they do not time an entry, and they are not counted as measurements of this market — otherwise every territory on earth would claim to be measured on the strength of one dataset.
| Indicator | Value | Year |
|---|---|---|
| GDP per capita | 13,862 US$ | 2025 |
| Consumer price inflation | 0.1 % | 2025 |
| Population | 1,406,585,000 | 2025 |
| Urban population | 66.3 % of total | 2025 |
| Official exchange rate | 7.1898 per US$ | 2025 |
What the rules do to a foreign buyer
Each entry cites the instrument and the authority page it was read from, with the date it was retrieved. Facts of law change; the retrieval date is how you know how old this reading is.
| Topic | How it fails you | In force | When it bites | Applies to | What applies | Instrument | Read on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Own use, own occupation — the test a letting fund cannot meet | Somebody has to say yesMoney does not open it | In forcefrom 2015-08-19 | On the way in | Residential onlyBoth are askedLived inLet to a tenant | China governs foreign purchase by asking what the property is for. Under the 2015 notice, branches and representative offices established in China by foreign institutions — other than enterprises approved to carry on a real estate business — and foreign individuals working or studying in China may buy commercial housing for their own use and own occupation, in an amount matching actual need. Two things follow that matter more than any rate. First, the qualifying buyer is defined by presence: a foreign institution is qualified through a branch or representative office established inside the country, and a foreign individual through working or studying here, so an entity with no Chinese establishment is outside the permission entirely. Second, the permitted purpose is self-use and self-occupation, which an institution buying to let cannot satisfy, and the amount is limited to actual need rather than to a ceiling that could be underwritten. Put plainly: the qualifying buyer has to live in it, and a vehicle that will rent it to a tenant is outside the permission however much it is willing to pay. The 2015 notice removed the earlier requirement that a foreign individual have been working or studying in China for more than one year; apart from the adjustments it makes, it states that the 2006 opinion continues in force. City-level purchase-restriction policies sit on top of this national framework, change frequently, and have not been read here. | Notice on adjusting policies for foreign investment access to and administration of the real estate market (Jian Fang [2015] No. 122, 19 August 2015), issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other departments. | 2026-09-06 |
| Real names at the registry, and the 2006 opinion that still stands behind it | Something must be filed | In forcefrom 2006-07-11 | On the way in | Residential onlyBoth are askedLived in | The 2006 inter-ministerial opinion is the frame the 2015 notice adjusted rather than replaced, and it is explicit that it otherwise continues in force. Under it, a qualifying foreign institution or individual buying commercial housing for its own use and occupation must do so under its real name and must present valid documents to the land and real estate authorities to register the land use right and the building ownership. Its original position was stricter than what now applies: a foreign institution with no branch or representative office established in China, and a foreign individual who had worked or studied in China for less than one year, could not buy commercial housing at all, and a qualifying foreign individual could not buy housing that was not for their own use and occupation — housing, that is, they would not live in. The real-name requirement is the part worth carrying forward into any structure, because it is the mechanism by which the purpose test is enforced at the point of registration rather than argued about afterwards. | Opinions on regulating the access to and administration of foreign investment in the real estate market (Jian Zhu Fang [2006] No. 171), issued by the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Commerce, the National Development and Reform Commission, the People's Bank of China, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. Read from the text published on the State Administration of Foreign Exchange portal. | 2026-09-06 |
What is missing, and why
supply — Source does not cover this market
The dataset simply does not include this territory. Absent, not zero.
No statistics agency for this market has been read and cleared for republication. Two have been anywhere: Canada and Singapore. The data very likely exists; the permission to publish it has not been established.
What supports this, what would make it wrong, and how it could go
Record
| Why this market is on the list | Added because two layers already covered it from sources whose licences are confirmed — the ECB reference rate for the currency and the BIS policy rate for the cost of money — and neither needed a new grant, a new connector, or a new fetch. The friction layer was opened on 2026-09-06 from the 2006 inter-ministerial opinion as published on the State Administration of Foreign Exchange's portal and the 2015 notice that adjusted it. The binding idea is not a tax or a quota but a purpose test: a purchase must be for the buyer's own use and own occupation, which is the one thing a letting fund cannot say. It is on the screen because it is measured, not because it was chosen. |
|---|---|
| Dossier | None written. Layers and rules only, which is why this market reads as “Measured” rather than reviewed. |
| Next review | 2026-11-15 |
| Evidence snapshot | 2026-10-06 |