BeijingMan: Beijing Real Estate

Above: The Pangu Plaza complex in Beijing near Olympic Stadium.

Beijing Real Estate in Change
PICTORIAL - BEIJING VIEWS

Beijing housing has rapidly changed towards private ownership. Government is stepping out of being developer, and taking regulator's role, towards executing laws.

Quality of construction materials has been improving. New middle-class gets their first own homes. Secondary market for real estates is emerging.

Managing private apartment houses is often left to developer's companies. Often there are no standards, no transparency. It will be a major challenge to modernize Beijing house managements, famous for their local 'mentality'. Situation opens business opportunities for professional house management companies from Hong Kong and Singapore to help Beijing towards higher quality of living.

-- BeijingMan

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All pictures in this post are from Beijing, most of them taken recently, some during past few years. Click to enlarge.

Above-0: Workers Inside Arena at GongTiBeiLu Avenue seen from Sun City roof. Beijing views photo gallery below.

Above-0: Beijing views. Swissotel, Poly Plaza Hotel/Showroom, East Gate Apartments.

Above-1: Beijing views. Swissotel and Poly Plaza Hotel/Showroom.

Above-2 BEFORE: Beijing views. Near Workers Stadium. House on down-left got Olympic roof and paint.

Above-3 BEFORE: Beijing views. Before Olympics. Flat roof house in down left.

Above-4 AFTER: Beijing views. This house was that betony box in previous pictures. Thanks to Olympic Games 2008, house got Olympic roof and look. Many houses have been similarly refurbished.

Above-5: Beijing views. City Hotel.

Above-6: China Life Tower, insurance company, near Foreign Ministry and Fulllink, East Ring-2.

Above-7: Beijing views. Sun City Apartments.

Above-8: Beijing views. From Sun City towards North, Season's Park direction.

Above-9: Beijing views. Kenzo offices/apartments, East Ring-2.

Above-10: Beijing views. Near Kenzo.

Above-11: Beijing views. Season's Park Apartments, North of Sun City.

Above-12: Beijing views. North-East of Sun City.

Above-13: Beijing views. GongTiBeiLu Avenue. Old picture, this house was like this for over five years. 2008 it was finalized for office use, now called ZhongYu Plaza.

Above-14: Beijing views. Beijing Sun City Apartments, Yang Guang Dushi, built in 2000-2002. Good location near Workers Stadium, some apartments with reasonable layouts. My friend invested in Sun City, some experiences.

Neighboring Season's Park Apartments would have given 20-30% better return for his investment, key reason being more professional house management with only 1,3RMB/m2 higher management fee than Sun City.

SUN CITY - NOT EXACTLY FOR A FAMILY WITH KIDS
With 800 apartments, Beijing Sun City is an example of conflict between past times attitudes and emerging Chinese modern city life. Sun City families have nearly 200 companies among them: offices, service companies, even factories. It's a conflict between middle class families who bought apartments as their home, SMEs which have rented apartments for business use, landlords who want money, and incompetent house management, and non-educated repair teams.

Forget the proverbs and philosophers, new reality is towards no-rights and no-respect. One landlord, an old woman in Sun City, teached my friend after 12 weeks of drilling noise, dust spreading, chemical smell, and strangers smoking and spitting in corridor, all caused by her repair team: "We have suffered, it's ok for others to suffer, too". Arrogance is a new reality with wealth. But happened that a technician in Sun City managed to connect central heating tube to household cold water tube, resulting yellow (probably not very healthy) water equally for everyone. House management never informed about that yellow cold water. Tubes got fixed in silence. Quality - not quite there yet, but management fee is also low 2,8RMB/m2.

In Sun City, any SME can pack tens of office workers into one apartment. For SMEs, apartment means cheaper rent and cheaper electricity and water compared to real office. At the same time Beijing has empty office buildings everywhere.

Apartment companies do almost continuous repair works because their use is heavy and built quality often poor. Floor drillings are a loss-loss especially for children. Workers drill during nights and weekends, house management would not interrupt them. "This is China" is often repeated defense "...so what you gonna do about it!" My investor friend knows a Sun City family who had to move to hotel at their own cost, while layered floor was built for an apartment factory.

On surface Beijing looks modern, but that's only surface. China is still a developing country (can't have offices/factories in apartments in European countries) and mentality unpredictable. Surprises, like yellow tap water, or pesticide gas in lifts and corridor, without informing, can happen. First generation of Beijing middle class make progress but don't have it fun.

Above-15: Beijing views. Diplomatic apartments at East Ring-2 near main avenue crossing.

Above-16: Beijing views. Left, Guanhua Lu road. Far middle, WTC.

Above-17: Beijing views.

Above-18: Beijing views. Ring-2 in South Beijing.

Above-19: Beijing views. JianGuoMenNei/East Ring-2.

Above-20: Beijing views. International Club. Right, St.Regis Hotel.

Above-21: Beijing views. At Ring-2.

Above-22: Beijing views. Apartment houses at South Ring-2 near Carrefour retail.

Above-23: Beijing views. Asian Hotel, FuHua Mansion, Swissotel Hotel.

Above-24: Beijing views. Near Workers Stadium.

Above-25: Beijing views. Near Workers Stadium.

Above-26: Beijing views. JianTaiLu, this street has many trees coming through roofs.

Above-27: Beijing views. Trees and houses in harmony.

Above-28: Beijing views. Old goes, SanLiTun bar street area.

Above-29: Beijing views. Old goes, SanLiTun bar street area.

Above-30: Beijing views. Old goes, SanLiTun bar street area.

Above-31: Beijing views.

Above-32: Beijing views. Temporary houses for workers.

Above-33: Beijing views. North of Season's Park.

Above-34: Beijing views. Season's Park Apartments, beside Sun City. Season's Park has more professional house management, its property value has developed much better.

Above-35: Beijing views. Financial Street, JinRongJie at North Ring-2.

Above-36: Beijing views. JinRongJie at North Ring-2.

Above-37: Beijing views. This is Lao YiJiChuang Factory, already taken down. The famous Factory No.1

Above-38: Beijing views. Lao YiJiChuang, famous Factory No.1 was one of the most beautiful buildings in Beijing.

Above-39: Beijing views. Lao YiJiChuang, Factory No.1

Above-40: Beijing views. Fire at LaiTai Flower Market, East Ring-3. Three people died. Old picture, from January 2002.

Above-41: Beijing views. East Gate Apartment towers, East Ring-2.

Above-42: Beijing views. China Life Tower, insurance company, near Foreign Ministry and Fulllink, East Ring-2.

Above-43: Beijing views. Car sales in suburb. Beijing gets 1600 new cars and trucks per day (March 2009) and will soon have 4M cars.

Above-44: Beijing views. COFCO Plaza seen from South.

Above-45: Beijing views.

Above-46: Beijing views. Friendship Store and diplomatic area behind it.

Above-47: Beijing views. JianGuoMenWai part of main avenue. Left, CITIC building, earliest foreign business tower. Right, China Radio tower.

Above-48: Beijing views.

Above-49: Beijing views. Glory International Apartments, south of Workers Stadium. Professional house management, good layouts in South side apartments. My home for 3 years in 22nd floor.

Above-50: Beijing views. Poly Plaza and East Gate Apartments.

Above-51: Beijing views. Near East Ring-3.

Above-52: Beijing views. East of FuHua Mansion at Ring-2. Beijing Mobile office.

Above-53: Beijing views. Sun City.

Above-54: Beijing views. New apartments in South-East Beijing.

Above-55: Beijing views. New low-cost apartments in South-East Beijing.

Above-56: Beijing views. A school in South-East Beijing.

Above-57: Beijing views. Friendship Store at main avenue. Left, old CITIC building opposite to SciTec department store.

Above-58: Beijing views. City Hotel at GongTiBeiLu Avenue near Workers Stadium and SanLiTun Village.

Above-59: Beijing views. View from 12th floor of Hilton Hotel towards East. Left, Microsoft Tower.

Above-60: Beijing views. View from 12th floor of Hilton Hotel.

Above-61: Beijing views. View from 12th floor of Hilton Hotel, towards East.

Above-62: Beijing views. View towards East from 12th floor of Hilton Hotel. Behind red-white striped houses is new U.S. Embassy.

Above-63: Beijing views. Winery in South-East Beijing.

Above-64: Beijing views. Red Hotel at ChunXiuLu road - Beautiful Spring road, near Workers Stadium. 75 rooms, renovated for Olympics.

Above-65: Beijing views. JingGuang Center - BeiJing-GuangZhou Center at East Ring-3. Recently had a major re-construction.

Above-66: Beijing views. Seasons Park Apartments.

Above-67: Beijing views. Bullet train bridge to Tianjin.

Above-68: Beijing views. DiJingHaoTing Hotel and Apartments in South-East Beijing. Not small.

Above-69: Beijing views. New SanLiTun Village at GongTiBeiLu Avenue.

Above-70: Beijing views. FuHua Mansion Office Towers, East Ring-2.

Above-71: Beijing views. Shin Kong Place Shopping Mall near WTC area, between East Ring-2 and Ring-3.

Above-72: Beijing views. Global Financial Services Center opposite to Sogo Department Store.

Above-73: Beijing views. Old times famous HongQiao market.

Above-74: Beijing views. China Petroleum headquarters, East Ring-2.

Above-75: Beijing views. Hotel Pure & Elegant, near WangFujing Shopping street.

Above-76: Beijing views. CNOOC oil headquarters, East Ring-2. Beijingers call this "golden toilet seat".

Above-77: Beijing views. The Place has giant LCD panel on top of walking street. Near Silk Street and Workers Stadium.

Above-78: Beijing views. East Ring-2, from left: Hotel Swissotel, Capital Plaza, FuHua Mansion. My office was in FuHua.

Above-79: Beijing views. New Poly Plaza opposite to old Poly and Hotel Swissotel at Ring-2 East.

Above-80: Beijing views. JinRongJie Shopping Mall.

Above-81: Beijing views. Golden Resources Shopping Mall, JinYuan, in Beijing West. Opened in 2005, one of the (world's) biggest.

Above-82: Beijing views. Toilet, GongTiBeiLu Avenue near Workers Stadium, many of these appeared for Olympics 2008.

Above-83: Beijing views. Middle, Sun City Apartment building seen from Season's Park Apartments.

Above-84: Beijing views. Macalline Home Furniture Center, East Ring-4. In this area also Beijing Outlets (not small), Wal-Mart, Parkson etc.

Above-85: Beijing views. Former Piazza Italia near Shin Kong Place Shopping Mall East of East Ring-3. Recently it became Burberry.

Above-86: Beijing views. Old Soho, offices for SMEs. East of East Ring-3. Several SOHOs in Beijing.

Above-87: Beijing views. Main avenue towards east from East Ring-3.

Above-88: Beijing views. Changan/JianGuoMenWai Avenue East from Ring-2.

Above-89: Beijing views. WangJing area, North from Ring-4.

Above-90: Beijing views. Shopping mall in WangJing, North from Ring-4.

Above-91: Beijing views. Country Club at Purple Jade Villas in North Beijing but not far from center. Purple Jade has large open-air swimming pools, a private lake and zoo.