Posted on 12/05/2008 4:59:44 PM PST by thetru
Chinese property hunters to raid US By Geoff Dyer in Beijing
Published: December 5 2008 20:10 | Last updated: December 5 2008 20:10
Chinese bargain hunters are preparing to descend on American cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, where homeowners have suffered some of the steepest price falls in the US.
SouFun, the biggest real estate website in China, is organising a trip next month to look at properties in California and possibly Nevada. Liu Jian, the company’s chief operating officer, said about 300 people had expressed interest in the idea in the three days since it was advertised, though the company would take only a small group on the first trip.
EDITOR’S CHOICE China lectures US on economy - Dec-04Lex: US-China dialogue - Dec-04Paulson in last stand against weaker renminbi - Dec-03“Given the problems in the Chinese market now, many people have been asking us about taking a look at overseas markets, especially the US,” he said.
The trip would focus on California, particularly San Francisco and Los Angeles, where big Chinese populations might make his clients more comfortable, but might also include Nevada.
Restrictions on taking money out of China would be an obstacle, he added, but some potential investors had an overseas connection such as a foreign passport that would make it easier.
Property professionals say there is considerable interest among wealthy Chinese, who often hold a high proportion of assets in property, in investing abroad.
“The US market absolutely terrifies me,” said one Shanghai-based real estate executive. “However, there are plenty of people here who think this a great time for bottom-fishing.”
There is opposition in China to SouFun’s plan. “Unless these people need a house in the US to live in, this is senseless,” said Yi Xianrong, a real estate expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “A few years ago there was a lot of talk about investing in German real estate but most of the people who did so lost a lot of money.”
SouFun, owned by Australia’s Telstra, provides information on property markets in more than 100 cities and has more than 40m registered users.
Maybe they’ll also be able to take advantage of the govt. giving away the store. From the Wall St. Journal (12/3 I think):
“...he and a group of investor partners recently paid about $1.2 million for a bulk purchase of about 800 homes from Fannie Mae. That works out to about $1500 apiece on average. ... Mr. Barnes says he quickly resold for about $50,000 one of the Detroit homes purchased from Fannie for $1800.”
Needless to say anyone who fell for the BS story that the government would make money on their bailout “investments” should look closely at this deal — who else but the government would sell 800 houses for $1.2 million! No doubt Mr. Barnes will make a fortune reselling them for what they are really worth. And the taxpayers will absorb the loss.
They did buy some land in Montana to raise beef for export to Japland. That is still a going concern.
The ChiComs will be interesting to keep an eye on. They thought the euro was a good idea last year when it was at its peak.
yitbos
We've got a couple of nice condo towers cheap and a few Station Casinos standing idle.
yitbos
Well, we gave them all our jobs and debt. The globalists should be just fine with us selling them all of our land as well.
It is definitely becoming a bargain-hunters paradise in some areas. I think it’s going to get better yet.
Here's a tell. Drive around Vegas and see how many real estate signs are in Chinese or bi-linbgual. Do the same in Diamond Bar, Walnut or Hacienda Heights and other communities along Hwy 60 or I-10.
Since one of their comrades will be in the White House, they figger their credentials will be checked as thoroughly as Klinton did for the Livermore and Los Alamos labs.
yitbos
yitbos
If you drive Golden Springs-Colima through the south valley, you will see all the big ones, Chinese, Koreans, Tagalog, and Japanese businesses. I don’t know of any major Kooeran move into residential real estate. Especially cash buyers blowing out the regular offers.
They’ll need them when they go up against the gangbangers and illegals living in the ruins of Detroit.
The chinese are welcome to buy all of Baltimore, nobody else will, with a few areas excepted, already overpriced.
The rest is garbaggio, townhouse for 7K earlier this decade, overpriced. Take your pick of the boarded up ones, they aren’t worth the cost to rehab them.
I refuse to go into the city, did that five years ago and didn’t think I’d ever get out. Traffic lights were screwed up on a Sat morning. Had to be on purpose nobody is that stupid.
Wish I could return the yitbos, my frat was Gamma Chi at Drexel. We always won awards from national, but last year our young alumni control board pulled the plug on the house, barred all the brothers, and will re-open the house around 2010 or 11, after all the “brothers” graduate or drop out.
We got the letter from an older ex-ACB member, one closer to my age, aka old, but the reason the plug was pulled wasn’t mentioned, I haven’t inquired why. I suspect activities that may have put the entire house in jeopardy, like underage girls, drinking or drug dealing. We had to throw one brother out for drug dealing back in the ‘60s at the start of the drug problems.
Don’t know how they’ll keep the house in shape until a new brotherhood can be initiated. I’m 90 miles away and haven’t been asked for help so I don’t know.
Neighbor: “Have you seen my dog? it’s gone missing”
Chinese neighbor: “I no see youa dog, did it have fat, round, juicy hind quarters?”
Sounds great. We can use some help to thin out the excess inventory.
Did you hear about the new Chinese cookbook?
....
....
101 ways to wok your dog
Great. Even the Commies are more capitalistic than us.
You beat me to it! (I was going to say the same thing.)
Hell, they can probably foreclose on the entire country in a few years if they can’t already.
Heaven help us all......
What do you call a Korean with two dogs?
Rancher.
The Japanese bought high, because their real estate was even higher. Then, their real estates/economic bubble collapsed, and they had to sell fast to raise cash. This looks like bottom-fishing to me.
At worst, they broke even on their US real estate investments. That's more than they can say about their Japanese purchases, which went down 90% from the peak.
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