Chinese investors find a captive rental market among fellow mainlanders for their German residential properties
- Executives from the Chinese community are buying flats across the country
- Top foreign companies too are increasingly offering staff accommodation in Germany to lure and retain talent
Chinese executives are buying property in Germany to rent to fellow employees relocating to Europe’s top economy, but it is only a matter of time before mainland companies invest themselves, mimicking the likes of Facebook and Google to attract and retain talent, say market observers.
“In Munich we advised a Huawei executive in purchasing four one- to two-bedroom apartments of up to €500,000 (US$563,110) [each], only to rent to other Chinese employees working at Huawei’s European Research Centre,” said Patricia Greissl, managing partner for Germany at Quintessentially Estates.
She said that this trend was prevalent in the Chinese community across Germany, referring to employees of Microvast, Catlbattery, and mainland banks based in Frankfurt.
A report by Yahoo Finance said that Huawei directly employs 2,600 workers in Germany, with 400 at its R&D centre in Munich. Greissl said the R&D centre was expected to add another 100 employees by 2020.
Greissl said that not only German companies such as Volkswagen and Siemens, but US tech giants like Facebook and Google were buying or developing property to lure and retain talent.
As the residential market in Germany’s seven biggest cities was getting increasingly tight with an overall shortage of one million flats, companies were starting to provide staff with accommodation, allowing highly qualified young staff to be able to afford to live on standard wages.
