China’s regional cuisines offer great insight into the variety on offer in the regional property markets. Aficionados and frequent travelers to China will know the variety of food on offer, and the spice and delicate flavors in the residential markets are similar. A couple of years ago, investors had difficulty distinguishing between the regions, a virtual guessing game of where best to make money. The answer was to spread it around and hope for the best. Little thought was given to how to avoid the current downturn that the cannier recognized as being just around the corner, presaged by a flood of foreign money.

COOLING OFF PERIOD

Nowadays submarkets within sectors, regions, cities and even city districts show great variety too. Cities within the Bohai Bay Area, the economy of which is less dependent on exports, make a great case study. Some cities are seeing half the number of buyers, while in others, transactions are down only 11 percent. Tianjin