The streets are alive with protests in Hong Kong, while mainland China’s banking system remains opaque and Japan stutter-steps forward under Abenomics. For institutional real estate investors, the Far East is alluring, but also a dance into the fire.

The globe’s most promising property markets tantalise from the Asian shores of the Pacific, where incomes are rising and economic growth outpaces that of the Western world. With hundreds of millions of Chinese pointed toward middle-class living standards, many property investors regard a stake in the region as imperative.

Yet Japan struggles to shake off deflation, while Hong Kong’s uncertain future lies within the embrace of the increasingly prosperous behemoth, communist China. And China — what can be said? It is a land of ferocious economic growth yet tight government censorship, as well as political murk and restrictions on property ownership.

Beyond the big economic and political questions — daunting