China's Top 10 Luxury Homes Revealed

Top-Tier Cities Dominate List Of Country's Most Lavish Homes Guangzhou Dayi villa Recently, China Real Estate Enterprises Association, The World Executive Group, The World Real Estate Academy and CEO-ZINE magazine released their eighth annual list of China's most expensive and luxurious homes. Ranked by indicators such as image awareness, quality/price ratio, ROI ratio and owner satisfaction, this year's list reflected the continued dominance of the ultra-premium real estate market in top-tier cities. Among the ten most luxurious homes this year, three are located in Beijing, three in Shanghai, two in Shenzhen, one in Guangzhou and one in the lone second-tier city, Dalian. For the third consecutive year, Guangzhou Dayi villas (广州大一山庄) topped the list, followed by Shanghai's Tomson Riviera (上海汤臣一品) and Oriental Xanadu in Dalian (大连星海湾壹号). Coming in fourth is Shanghai's Riverside Arc de Triomphe (上海滨江凯旋门), followed by Pangu Plaza in Beijing (北京盘古大观), Greentown Rose Garden in Shanghai (上海绿城玫瑰园), Shenzhen's Days Bay (深圳天琴湾) and OCT East Tianlu Villa (深圳东部华侨城·天麓). Rounding out the list are Beijing's Dragon Lake · Yi He Yuan Zhun (北京龙湖·颐和原著) and Xia Public House (北京霞公府). Dalian Oriental Xanadu (Image: house.sina.com.cn) It's not terribly surprising that only five cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dalian) comprise this year's most luxurious property list, as these cities are the hot spots not only for the country's elite, but also hot destinations for the inland nouveau riche. While the strength of top-tier cities Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen on this list isn't terribly surprising, what is interesting is the fact that Dalian, a coastal city in northeast China's Liaoning province, is the only second-tier city to make the cut. Though a relatively wealthy city, owing to its status as a bustling international shipping port, Dalian is at times overshadowed by the nearby city of Shenyang. However, in recent years Dalian has staked a claim as a logistics hub and regional financial base, and investment in real estate has boomed, particularly at the high end. Incidentally, on other lists we've seen Dalian show up among China's top ten "happiest cities" and "sexiest cities." According to Ding Haisen, editor-in-chief of CEO-ZINE, the average price of a villa in top-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai or Shenzhen has increased 500 percent in the last decade, while the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock indexes have only risen 50 percent. As Jing Daily has previously noted, with inflation continuing to bite and the Chinese yuan under increasing pressure, more wealthy Chinese are concerned about their yuan-denominated assets. For most of China's ultra-rich, as Ding Haisen added, buying a luxury home is seen as a long-term investment. Whether this investment proves wise is up for debate, but as Ding noted, this group of high net worth individuals is now looking increasingly abroad. Over the last two years, affluent Chinese have made up an increasing proportion of the global high-end luxury property market, due to declining prices and the appreciation of the yuan, in places like Sydney, New York, and London. In addition to the China Top Ten list, last week the World's Top Ten Luxury Home was unveiled in Beijing. Among the most luxurious homes in the world, five are located in the US, two in the UK, and the rest are located in India, France and Romania. Compared to the Chinese list, the world list only ranked homes based on market price. In the global rankings, the average price for one of the world's 10 most luxurious homes is US$314 million. However, the top homes are worth far more than that, with the Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani's super luxury home Antilla topping the list with a price of around $900 million. Priced at $750 million, France's Villa Leopolda ranked second, followed by a home that is definitely not on the market, the White House in Washington, DC, which came in at $400 million. While none of China's most luxurious homes showed up on the global list this year, anything is possible, especially if one of the country's newly minted moguls decides to out-Ambani Mukesh Ambani in the near future. After all, as China Daily pointed out this week, there is no shortage of super-rich Chinese who have more money than taste.

China's Top 10 Luxury Homes Revealed

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Published April 20, 2011

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China's Top 10 Luxury Homes Revealed