Chinese investors are buying fewer properties in Thailand due to dissatisfaction back home.

Chinese real estate investors, who used to actively buy luxury apartments and apartments in Thailand, are cutting back on their investments due to the economic slowdown and real estate crisis back home.

Many Chinese invest up to 70% of their savings in real estate, which has benefited the luxury condo and apartment sector in Thailand for several years.

Kashif Ansari, co-founder and CEO of Juwai IQI Group, a real estate marketing company that helps connect Chinese buyers with properties in Southeast Asia from Kuala Lumpur and other offices, told VOA Korean Service that the trend is now declining. "This year, Thailand is no longer the top destination for Chinese buyers as it was in previous years," Ansari said via e-mail. " Instead, it ranks fifth, with the top four destinations being all traditional English-speaking countries with prominent education sectors."

According to data from Juwai IQI, Thailand was the most popular destination for Chinese residential real estate investment from 2018 to 2021, but it fell to fourth place by 2022 and ranked fifth in the first half of 2023.

The Thailand Real Estate Information Center also revealed that Chinese buyers were the largest group of foreign apartment buyers in Thailand since 2018, purchasing 3,562 units worth more than $511 million in the first nine months of 2022.

The four most popular countries among Chinese buyers in the first half of 2023 were Australia, Canada, the UK and the US, according to Juwai IQI. Ansari said the Chinese are buying houses in Australia to move and live there permanently. Chinese buyers of residential real estate in Thailand are mostly investors. "Most of the Chinese buyers [in Australia] this year are buying own-use properties and are going to get new Australian citizenship," Ansari said.

Neighboring Vietnam ranked ninth in Ansari's survey and is less reliant on Chinese investors than Thailand, according to real estate agents. Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City-based Global Green Real Estate Nguyen Thanh Nga told VOA Vietnamese Service that "Chinese investors are mainly interested in apartments in big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City." He said the collapse in China's real estate market has not affected Vietnam and that investment by Chinese investors in the country remains stable.

Su Ngoc Khuong, senior investment director at Savills Vietnam made the statement to VOA Vietnamese Service that Vietnam does not rely heavily on Chinese buyers, adding that foreign buyers using his firm come from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Basic financial confidence among China's wealthy population has declined slightly this year, causing them to think twice about expensive purchases, according to a study by the Shanghai Institute of Finance and financial firm Charles Schwab. Problems in the Chinese economy, such as high youth unemployment, an 8.8% drop in exports in August, a decline in household consumption contributing to deflation, and a massive crisis in the real estate market are prompting speculation that the next step in China's decade of economic growth could be stagnation. These financial difficulties at home are causing Chinese buyers to hesitate in their decisions to invest in Thailand.

Deals now take months. Kin Qiu, founder of Taiheju, a real estate agency in Thailand that mainly deals with clients from China interested in renting or investing in properties in that country, told VOA Thai Service in a phone interview, "During the peak in 2018, it took several weeks to close a deal, sometimes as little as one week if the client came and inspected the property. Now it takes several months."

Prashanth Parameswaran, a Wilson Center fellow and founder of the ASEAN Wonk weekly newsletter told VOA Korean Service, "We are seeing a recalibration of economic reality after the pandemic, and that includes the current slowdown in the Chinese economy." "The future will depend on the actions of other Chinese investors going forward and what Southeast Asian countries can do to manage the impact of this collapse with both Beijing and other potential sources of investment," he said.