Seattle’s relative low prices compared to other West Coast cities in the U.S. and Canada is attracting greater attention and dollars from foreign investors, especially Asian ones, according to the Seattle Times. Already home to U.S. corporate giants like Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks and Costco, Asian investors have their sights on Seattle’s future potential as a global business hub.
While much of the media focus is on Seattle’s hot residential market, the big money is going into city’s commercial sector. In fact, the Seattle Times reported that, excluding houses, foreign investors have purchased more than $4 billion worth of commercial buildings of all types (offices, apartment complexes and warehouses) since 2015. That investment rate is three-times of what it was in the previous decade. As such, the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate named the Emerald City as the fifth city in the U.S. for foreign investment, up from the eighth position last year.
“We’re on their radar screen,” Gordon Ahalt, senior director of the Cushman & Wakefield/Commerce brokerage in Seattle, said of foreign buyers. “We’re on everyone’s top hit list right now. I don’t see this as a short-term deal.”