More than US$93 billion spent by Chinese on residences – report

The Chinese have outstripped Canadian nationals as the largest foreign buying segment of US residential real estate, a recent study revealed

A recent study co-authored by The Asia Society and Rosen Consulting Group revealed that Chinese buyers have spent over US$93 billion on homes in the United States from 2010 to 2015, outstripping Canadian nationals as the largest foreign buying segment of U.S. residential real estate.
 
As reported by Melody Hahm of Yahoo! Finance, this is part of a long-running trend of Chinese buyers and investors seeking out major metropolitan markets overseas like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in the U.S., and Vancouver and Toronto in Canada.
 
Foreign buyers are increasingly looking at markets around and outside of these hotspots, however, and it is this development that deserves further attention, the study added.
 
“As the Chinese get more sophisticated, as they’re here more often, and as they start looking for value, the real bargains are not in these cities any longer; they’re inland and they’re places you wouldn’t normally expect to see it,” The Asia Society VP of global programs Bruce Pickering explained.
 
“So the Chinese are moving out pretty fast into cities that frankly could use the investment,” the executive said.
 
In Canada, real estate activity and price growth have started spilling over to locales surrounding the highest-demand markets of Vancouver and Toronto.
 
The joint report added that Chinese purchases and investment in the U.S. commercial real estate sector rose by around 70 per cent annually between 2010 and 2015, just right behind Canada, Singapore, and Norway.