Posted on 04/23/2015 10:12:16 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Chinese buyers looking to invest off-shore are most interested in San Francisco, according to a report from luxury listing site, which tracked millions of online searches from Chinese buyers in the first quarter of 2015. San Francisco ranked seventh in the survey in the fourth quarter of last year, but in the most recent survey beat out London, Tuscany, New York and Paris.
“For many well-heeled Chinese buyers, the entire U.S. housing market, and even the somewhat pricey S.F. Bay Area remains a bargain versus Hong Kong, New York, London and Beijing,” he said. “Bay Area real estate represents an attractive opportunity for investment or purchasing second homes for themselves or primary residences for family members.”
One year ago, Pacific Union launched its Chinese Service Concierge Desk to cater to this growing segment of the Bay Area marketplace. McLaughlin revealed that his stats show that 25% of buyers in Palo Alto “have a Chinese connection,” versus 20% in San Francisco and just below 10% throughout the Bay Area.
Some Chinese buyers purchase without seeing their new investments, but most get a preview of the properties they are going to see online and then tour the homes and make a quick decision when they come to the Bay Area for a visit, McLaughlin said. For example, just a few weeks ago a Chinese tech executive in the concierge program purchased the $5.4-million Palo Alto home shown in the gallery above. He had sold his start up in China and planned on moving his family to the U.S. to live and go to school. The all-cash deal closed in one week.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.sfgate.com ...
” I imagine someone who bought property at that time would have made a killing.”
Yes. Yes indeed.
Okay.
If I’m ever looking to purchase some Chinese people I know where to go!
Yes.
And the Japanese mostly made money at it, in spite of so many laughing at them at the time.
The world today seems absolutely crackers
With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high
There’s fools and idiots sittin’ on the trigger
It’s depressing and it’s senseless, and that’s why
I like Chinese, I like Chinese
They only come up to your knees
Yet they’re always friendly, and they’re ready to please
I like Chinese, I like Chinese
There’s nine hundred million of them in the world today
You’d better learn to like them, that’s what I say
I like Chinese, I like Chinese
They come from a long way overseas
But they’re cute and they’re cuddly, and they’re ready to please
I like Chinese food, the waiters never are rude
Think of the many things they’ve done to impress
There’s Maoism, Taoism, I Ching, and chess
So I like Chinese, I like Chinese
I like their tiny little trees
Their Zen, their ping-pong, their yin and yang-ese
I like Chinese thought, the wisdom that Confucius taught
If Darwin is anything to shout about
The Chinese will survive us all without any doubt
So, I like Chinese, I like Chinese
They only come up to your knees
Yet they’re wise and they’re witty and they’re ready to please
All together
Wo ai zhongguo ren, wo ai zhongguo ren
Wo ai zhongguo ren
Ni hao ma; ni hao ma; ni hao ma; zaijien
I like Chinese, I like Chinese
Their food is guaranteed to please
A fourteen, a seven, a nine and lychees
I like Chinese, I like Chinese
I like their tiny little trees
Their Zen, their ping-pong, their yin and yang-ese
I like Chinese, I like Chinese
They only come up to your knees
Thats the plan. Mine anyway.
If I cane get my wife to agree to move, and survive the fallout.
American real estate agents are now selling our old tract houses for $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 a pop, in cash deals... to buyers in seminars the American agents are holding in mainland Chinese hotels (Shanghai, Beijing, etc.).
The real estate agents fly to Communist China with complete purchase contracts and pictures (or projection slides), and sell houses in San Francisco area .... instantly.
American realty agents also pick up visitors from Communist China at the SF and LA airports to give them property tours, many of the Chinese arrive with suitcases full of cash. So much so that the escrow people have had to issue brochures against bringing cash into their offices (most of which are still small rental quarters and not always in secure locations). Arrangements are employed for direct funds transfers into escrow by wire...from banks anywhere but now also in Communist China.
Some of the Communist Chinese immigrate to USA. Some of them come back on visitor visas and stay forever (easy to do we’re told now under Obama). Some never actually visit or live in the houses they buy here, they just want to get some of their money out of PRC in case their government re-imposes monetary export restrictions.
There are no laws or restrictions against purchase of these houses by anybody, no matter citizenship or nation of residency. It is open season to all. There is also an element of the old “musical chairs” game... as the Communist Chinese have bid these hoursing prices up so high that only the top One Percent of American citizens can afford even the simplest, smallest or oldest tract house anymore. Even doctors and dentists have trouble buying much more than “fixer-uppers” these days. It is the owners of major corporations (or top executives with successful stock options) that can afford to make $2 or 3 million cash bids on 1200 sq foot shelter sheds erected in the 1950’s. Everyone knows the music will eventually stop and the market crash again, but it does not matter much to Americans who can’t buy now... and it doesn’t appear to matter very much to the Communist Chinese, either, since many of them mostly just want to get some funds out of PRC and they realize prices can go up and down...its a long-term placement for them, not something they track or care much about on a daily or even annual basis. And the music might go on for quite awhile anyway, since there are so many buyers in China (and elsewhere)...
Many neighborhoods have gone from mostly Caucasian to mostly Asian. Many of the Chinese that do move to USA can can understand English, since its a required subject in Chinese schools (and remember, too,, that many of these buyers are said to be Communist party apparachnik -factory manager types....all of whom speak English with many having even studies in English-language colleges).
One good thing is that the school test scores shoot right up. Its not anything the schools do better, its just that the Chinese parents make sure their kids do their homework.
It is, all in all, a fascinating (and, yes, highly disruptive) phenomenon...
What did Americans expect Red China to do with all the greenbacks they receive for their crappy merchandise? They can’t spend it in China.
Young Americans will be lucky to work for anyone; Red China has a billion+ looking to move here. They poisoned/polluted their own nest (to sell us said crappy merchandise), now their new capitalists will bring them over here to work.
You sound like a marxist when you use the word “exploiting” in this context.
They are employing and PAYING those people, and the workers are glad to freely exchange their labor for money.
They got hosed when the boomlet in Japan collapsed. The Japanese were stuck with properties that sat empty, since the rentals they had to charge to pay the loans were twice what the guy down the block was charging. They would be forced to sell back at a substantial loss, getting back only 50% of the price they paid. The Japanese banks have never recovered.
Now, these super clever Communists are paying Hong Kong prices for San Francisco properties. When you consider that current rentals in SF are driving everyone out of town, the Chinese are going to get raped.
And, just like then, the MSM were yapping how the Japanese going to buy the whole country. I think I'll wait awhile before I panic.
Watch for the Walmart Communist Chinese investors to jump in here telling all what great prices they have and how lucky we are to have them here.
” I don’t see the problem here, I see an opportunity”
Exactamundo! All those billions of dollars that we spend at Walmarts, Targets, Home Depot, Apple, etc, a good chunk of which go to China are now coming home to roost. It’s all good.
“When you consider that current rentals in SF are driving everyone out of town”
?
SOME people are being driven out of town. Many more who can afford these rents are coming in. Population has increased.
What happens to Wal-Mart workers in China that strike for higher wages?
My guess is they give them an .80 on their paychecks. Keep them happy and proud.
Sadly
Better Red, than Mo ham ed....
Yup, and the price of Tokyo real estate market was higher than the price of the the rest of the worlds real estate markets combined.
The good old days.
Sadly
Better Red, than Mo ham ed....
Not so sadly, actually.
The Chinese are great people to have in this country.
They work hard, have great values and become an asset to the country.
Of course there are cultural differences .
I never could get used to dried shrimp and whole milk for breakfast.
Wal-Mart fills a niche with cheap Red Chinese crap; I do like their grovery prices, though (they certainly undersell supermarkets). People should just understand that these Red Chinese are just that; they aren’t “American” or “Western” at all.
I was impressed by San Fran’s Chinatown; I believe it is the oldest in the US (probably from when they shipped them in to work on the railroads), Lots of Taiwan flags...
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