“Less than 1% of Mainland Chinese speaks English”
This is a brazen lie. A global educational study called PISA (Program for International Assessment ) tested over 500,000 pupils in over 70 countries every three years. The 2010 results showed that pupils in Shanghai are the world’s best. In addition, Shanghai was the first city in the world to achieve one hundred percent primary and junior high school enrollment!
However, Shanghai’s system still has its flaws and some Chinese parents prefer that their children attend overseas schools to nurture creativity. Thus leading to them wanting to buy a house in your area. For anyone to repeat rubbish about Chinese people’s abilities is a sign of how out of touch they are with life in China. Don’t let that be you.
If you need any proof, simply walk up to the next group of Chinese tourists you see on the street and introduce yourself! Get off your backside and start meeting people. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at their English ability. Especially compared to your Mandarin….
The “China’s “Great Firewall” is blocking your website” scam
There are overseas real estate listing sites that sell advertising by fear mongering. Telling you that “you might not know it but YOUR SITE MIGHT BE BLOCKED! Scary right? I have good news for you. THE CHINESE FIREWALL HAS NEVER BLOCKED A REAL ESTATE WEBSITE! NEVER ONCE IN HISTORY!
If you have any doubt about specific websites, go to http://www.websitepulse.com/ and test any site! It’s easy! Get the facts.
Here is a list of sites NOT BLOCKED in China.
Zillow
Trulia
Realestate.com.au
Rightmove.co.uk
Realtor.org
And there are two fantastic places to upload listings that are extremely quick and visible in China. WeChat and Weibo. And both are free.
You need an all Chinese website and “Professional Translation” for your listings
If you were looking for a date, would you put up a personal ad in a language that you cannot speak? Do you want to be bombarded with emails in Chinese? Calls in Russian? If you don’t speak and write Chinese, don’t advertise in Chinese. By writing in English, you can attract English speaking Chinese to your site or your Chinese social media. If you mislead them, don’t be surprised to get a bunch of useless leads.
You should hand your leads off to a “Chinese Consumer Support Centre”
Fresh Chinese buyer leads are very valuable. Remember, this is not support. This is sales. And to sell you need to develop a relationship with the buyer. Do not. Repeat, do not allow your valuable leads to talk to other people.
Look how Chinese agents act in your area. You can see them in groups getting off minivans trudging in and out of houses the world over. They keep their clients very tight. Never let them out of their site. If you try to talk to them, they will be quickly ushered away. Why? Because these leads are valuable.
Why would you want a buyer with millions of dollars burning a hole in his pocket talking to anyone but your best agent, or yourself. Answer, you don’t. No different with Chinese. Once you find a hot buyer, if you can help it, don’t let them out of your site until the contract is signed. And definitely don’t let them talk to some flunkie interns (who don’t know you, your area, your properties) manning the phones at a website.
Facebook is blocked so it is useless in selling to Chinese
Facebook and Youtube are blocked in China. You need a virtual private network software VPN (costs about $100 a year) to use them. Guess what? For rich Chinese, the type you want to sell luxury homes to, a hundred bucks isn’t a lot of money. So rich people in China look at any site they want. So you can reach wealthy Chinese on Facebook but you can’t reach lower socio-economic classes of folk. In essence, by screening out most of the population, the Chinese government policy actually helps you to reach your target demographic on Facebook.
As a side note, Facebook exists in China and there are a number of popular Facebook Fan pages too. China Daily’s Facebook page has over 7 million fans in Mainland China! I doubt you need 7 million leads to be successful. See a list of the most popular Facebook pages in China. Jet Li, Jacky Chan and a gambling site.
Make no mistake: There will be many new challenges when dealing with overseas Chinese real estate investors. But don’t let these falsehoods hinder your progress. Knowledge is your friend.
