Wendy Zhang/ Shanghai Daily news

With Shanghai having limited investment opportunities in the real estate market, Jiangsu and Guangdong Provinces are likely to become the new battlefields for foreign real estate speculators, today's Shanghai Securities Times reported.
Overseas investments played an important role in Shanghai's real estate market last year, with 22.2 billion yuan (US$2.67 billion) poured into the market. However, this year, a growing amount of foreign investments have flowed to Jiangsu and Guangdong Province, with the amounts 6.6 and 2.5 times the amounts from last year respectively.
Fewer investment channels in China is cited as the main reason for foreign investments to crowd into the real estate market, said an industry analyst, adding that the long-term sluggish stock market has given a boost to real estate investment.
However, investment opportunities in Jiangsu and Guangdong Province are also shrinking, the analyst pointed out. Residents in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province have a per capita debt of 7,067 yuan (US$851), with nearly 77 percent of their debt in property loans, so they will be unable to take on new loans. Moreover, no preferential policies are available in Guangdong for real estate investments.