Chinese investment in global property will total $15bn (£9.5bn) by the end of 2014, according to Knight Frank estimates.
Most of this investment has been focused in gateway cities of Australia, the US and the UK, according to the agent. Australia has posted the strongest growth at 60% on the year.
Four of the top 20 Chinese insurers were found to have made significant offshore investment, while eight of them are considering overseas expansion.
London’s total – which topped the list in 2013 with nearly £3bn of inward Chinese investment – is set to decline slightly this year, being narrowly overtaken by New York but remaining ahead of the combined total of Sydney and Melbourne.
The agent said low yields and a lack of investable stock in China, as well as sovereign wealth seeking trophy assets and banks seeking occupation property would drive Chinese demand to diversify away from core office and residential development into regional assets, and leisure and industrial.
Neil Brookes, Knight Frank’s head of capital markets for Asia Pacific, said: “Investors today are shifting their focus towards sustainable returns in the long term. The key factors for Chinese investors are the policy push from the Chinese government to diversify into other countries, a softening domestic market, and the pull from higher returns achievable in overseas markets.
“Australia, the US and the UK are the top three markets most Chinese investors are looking at. We saw five times as much capital outflow from China into these three markets in 2013 alone compared to the previous year. We expect transaction volumes from Chinese investors into these three markets this year to match or even exceed those of last year.”
