More investment options would check home prices

Chinese savers and investors, like those in other countries, look for the highest return at the lowest possible increment of risk. In the last nine months, this risk-return calculus has undergone some profound changes. That's not only because of the steep slide in the stock market since July last year, which caused many Chinese investors to pull their money out.

Other hot areas have tumbled just as sharply, as slowing growth exposed the risks of these alternatives. Wealth management products are basically a form of collateralized lending direct from savers to larger Chinese companies and municipalities. Investors have grown more worried about defaults and other signs of mounting trouble among borrowers. The interest rates on offer don't seem adequate to compensate for the risk.

Even more worrying is what's happened of late in so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) lending. This was until recently the hottest new way for individuals to earn big money with their savings.

The amount of money invested in P2P lending last year nearly quadrupled from 2014 to 982 billion yuan ($149 billion). But P2P investors' worst fears came true when one of the bigger P2P loan packagers, Ezubao, suddenly went bust in January. Ezubao had offered mostly fake investment products to nearly one million Chinese investors, with promises of annual returns of up to 15 percent. Ezubao allegedly took more than 50 billion yuan from investors. Sadly, the cardinal rule of investing, "if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is" is not as widely observed in China as it should be.

Little wonder then that investing in property should now seem to many Chinese like the safest and sanest investment, apart from putting money in a State-owned bank. While the investment logic is sound, the unfortunate result is that buying a place to live in is getting too expensive for too many people in China, especially in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

More than most other places, China's housing market is dominated more by investors looking for profits than people looking to put a roof over their head. The balance needs to be restored. For that to happen, these investors need to find other places to invest that offer the potential for equally attractive risk-adjusted returns.

The author is chairman and CEO of China First Capital.