Everywhere you look at the moment there’s news about the Chinese buying international property… but how easy is it really to sell properties (or other products and services for that matter) in China?

Having attended numerous trade shows in mainland China and Hong Kong recently, I am astounded at the lack of understanding of the multitude of smaller markets that make up this huge potential market.

Why is it so difficult? Our firm has been told by so-called “experts” about how things should be done – only to find out their advice was based on opinion not on factual information. Surely we should be able to just translate our brochures from English into Chinese and hire a couple of staff who can speak the language? This is the misconception that many developers and agents have when breaking into the Chinese market and they very quickly learn that it is not quite that simple. For example, do you translate into Traditional or Simplified Chinese? Do you hire a Mandarin or Cantonese speaking representative – and if you happen to be in places like Shanghai – how important is it to hire someone who can speak the local dialect (which is different again to Mandarin)?

Once you’ve perfected all of the above, more roadblocks remain… while in the past “burn and churn” tactics may have worked, the market has matured and investors more informed. Overseas property expos run almost on a weekly basis in China and there are Chinese language websites dedicated to historical house price information in Australia – both sales and rental information. Some existing investors have been burnt in the past and are more cautious now. Other factors also come into play… currency fluctuations mean that while we have seen a healthy increase in property values in Sydney over the past couple of years, the overseas investor has only seen a marginal increase once the AUD/USD exchange rate is taken into account.

Today, relationship building and trust is more important than ever. Buyers want to be able to see that firms are established and around for the long haul. A “one size fits all” strategy simply won’t work… as a firm with clients in both Hong Kong and mainland China, we have recognised the numerous cultural differences in each regional area adapted our strategy accordingly.

Our firm has enlisted help from contacts and partners in all the local areas in which we operate and we ourselves are constantly learning what works in each market.

So in short, what is the one point that you can take away from this article? Understand your market. While our focus is on helping our overseas based clients with their property purchases locally, if you have any specific questions about marketing in China or wish to tap into the expertise that we have gained in order to market your development or agency overseas, contact us today on [email protected] to see how we can assist.

This story brought to you by RE Talk Asia.