China's property crisis is starting to ripple across the world

Chinese investors and their creditors are putting up "for sale" signs on real estate holdings across the globe as the need to raise cash amid a deepening property crisis at home trumps the risks of offloading into a falling market.

-  NEIL CALLANAN & AINSLIE CHANDLER

The prices they get will help finally put hard numbers on just how much trouble the wider industry is in.

The worldwide slump triggered by borrowing-cost hikes has already wiped more than $1 trillion off office property values alone, Starwood Capital Group Chairman Barry Sternlicht said last week. But the total damage is still unknown because so few assets have been sold, leaving appraisers with little recent data to go on. Completed commercial property deals globally sank to the lowest level in a decade last year, with owners unwilling to sell buildings at steep discounts.

Regulators and the market are nervous that this logjam could be concealing large, unrealised losses, spelling trouble both for banks, who pushed further into bricks and mortar lending during the cheap money era, and asset owners.