This CNN/Money report details how buyers from China are increasingly opting for U.S. real estate, often paying in cash and preferring California to most other states.
Flush with cash, Chinese homebuyers are flooding into the U.S. housing market, and paying top dollar.
“The Chinese came out really huge in the past year,” said Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel, a New York-based appraiser.
Chinese buyers accounted for 18% of the .2 billion that foreigners spent on homes during the 12 months ended March 31, according to the National Association of Realtors.
At a median price of 5,000, the Chinese are also buying more expensive homes than other foreign buyers, who spent a median of nearly 6,000 on U.S. homes. And nearly 70% of those pricey Chinese deals were made in all cash.
Nowhere is the influx of Chinese homebuyers felt more strongly than in California, where more than half of the homes sold to foreign buyers went to Chinese nationals.
It would have been nice to put the billion total into historical context along with the disproportionate share of homes in California sold to foreigners going to the Chinese. It sounds like a lot, but how much higher is it from years past?
My guess is that, since more than half the properties in Vancouver now cost more than a million dollars, the Chinese have tired of this area and have headed south.
Source: Iacono Research
