subject: Chinese Are Eating Up The Property Bargains Like Vultures For Investment Purposes [print this page] Chinese Are Eating Up The Property Bargains Like Vultures For Investment Purposes
Beijing lawyer Lily Wong is targeting the United States as a safe place to invest, not looking for designer clothes or jewelry, but for a home in Florida.
She expects to get a bargain. Wong is part of a growing number of Chinese investors who want to take advantage of slumping U.S. real estate prices amid a financial crisis.
"It's a great time to buy because of the financial crisis, and houses in cities like Orlando Florida will definitely go up in a few years," Wong said. The home is an investment, but she's also planning long-term: She hopes her 5-year-old son might use it if he goes to college in the United States.
While China's ultra-rich have been buying property in the U.S. for years, the buying power has shifted and many average income Chinese investors are jumping on the bandwagon because American real estate prices have been falling for two and a half years.
Many Chinese buyers are opting to purchase sight unseen according to Investment Property Vultures. The Orlando, Florida based company specializes in bringing exactly these illusive property deals to the Chinese buyers is. Mainly they offer foreclosures and distressed properties but also, government owned properties. Investors anywhere in Asia including China, Hong Kong, and Singapore can contact them via their website www.investmentpropertvultures.com or email them at info@investmentpropertyvultures.com.
The fact that the prices of homes are such bargains and their monies are secured by a Title company before finalizing the purchase of the property has provided the Chinese the confidence in purchasing sight unseen.
"The Chinese are going to seize the opportunity to take advantage of some great deals. Before, we heard of Chinese or Hong Kong movie stars buying homes in the U.S., and now more and more Chinese can afford to have the same," said a representative of Investment Property Vultures.
The home-buying opportunities mirror a larger trend. Cash-rich Chinese companies are looking to buy resources made suddenly cheaper by the downturn or companies suffering under the global debt meltdown. Recently, the Aluminum Corp. of China, also known as Chinalco and the world's leading aluminum producer, invested $19.5 billion in debt-burdened global miner Rio Tinto Group; China's biggest overseas investment to date.
Because the authoritarian government has imposed controls limiting China's exposure to international capital flows, the country has largely avoided the worst of the global financial crisis. Meanwhile, high-level incomes have continued to rise. China had the world's fifth-largest population of millionaires in 2008 with 391,000, up 20 percent from the previous year, according to Boston Consulting Group.
But Chinese with money in the bank have few good investment options at home. Real estate prices have cooled and stock prices peaked in October 2007 after a two-year boom that saw shares rise six-fold in value. After years in which foreign money poured into China to take advantage of the hot economy, economists estimate that tens of billions of dollars began leaving the country in the last three months of 2008 as Chinese investors began bargain-hunting.
Chinese buyers are looking at homes to rent out or use on business trips. And the U.S. has plenty of unsold homes to offer in the likes of 3.67 million as of the end of December, according to the National Association of Realtors.
