Office Property Returns in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen

Commercial property development in China has been a growth industry in recent years. This article examines the returns on office property in the three major cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen in the period 1991 to 1997. Analyses based on the Security Market Line (SML) show that property investments in the office sector in Shanghai and Guangzhou have excess returns and that Shanghai office property tends to dominate the optimal portfolios due to its superior risk-adjusted returns. While equal returns in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen cannot be rejected, the Shanghai office property is subject to the least systematic risk, compared with all other cities. Hong Kong office property is included only in the less risky optimal portfolios. In addition, our results indicate that there is little correlation between the office property returns in Hong Kong and the office property in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Guangzhou and Shenzhen office markets, which are geographically relatively close to Hong Kong, tend to be more volatile than the Shanghai office market. However, owing to Shenzhen's proximity to Hong Kong, there is significant correlation between the returns of the office property in Shenzhen and the office property in Hong Kong.