Emerging global real estate markets are tricky to navigate, for both investors and developers, due to headaches like unstable governments, Byzantine zoning laws, shaky local infrastructure and the far-reaching hand of the European debt crisis. But the lure of a growing middle class can make spots like Brazil, Turkey, Colombia, China and India too attractive to resist.

Thomas McDonald, the chief strategic officer at Equity International, says the Chicago-based company “began investing in China a couple of years ago, initially in the homebuilding sector.” China, whose 2010 GDP hit $5.9 trillion, according to data from the World Bank, saw total foreign direct investment that year top out at $105.7 billion. Much of this was the result of real estate investors and developers trying to take advantage of the country’s booming economy.

McDonald says that Equity International tends to concentrate on the larger countries in terms of GDP and population. Earlier funds the group launched, for example, focused on Mexico.

Shanghai Jingrui Properties Co. Ltd.—a homebuilder that targets second- and third-tier Chinese cities and in which Equity owns a stake—is one of the firm’s current access points to the fruits of China’s growing middle class and GDP. According to McDonald, it’s one of two initial investments the firm made a couple of years ago; the other, also a homebuilder, has since been sold. In October, Equity International sold its ownership interest in Shanghai Yupei Group Co. Ltd., an owner and operator of warehouse and distribution centers, to Global Logistics Properties. With tenants like Itochu and Bosch Siemens, the facility had benefited greatly from the increased movement of consumer goods within the country...

...To read the rest of the story, visit the November 2011 issue of Real Estate Forum.