Growing affluence, a weakening Yuan, a desire to own properties in a second country and an over-heated domestic real estate market, are all fueling a Chinese buying-spree of U.S. properties, according to Bloomberg.
The Chinese appetite for American properties, which is estimated at $93 billion worth of purchases from 2010-2015, has already catapulted China as the largest buyer of American property, surpassing Canada. In fact, a major Chinese property website forecasts that overseas buying will increase 130% this year over 2015, while another Chinese real estate company said foreign transactions by Q3 2016 were already 50% higher than last year’s level. Nor is the trend expected to slow anytime soon. According to Chinese real estate search engine Juwai.com, Chinese holdings of global real estate will reach $220 billion by 2020, up from $80 billion last year.
The buying is also no longer limited to expensive first-class coastal cities such as Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco. Chinese investors are increasingly branching out to more affordable cities such as Houston, as well as other global locations such as Indonesia and Thailand in pursuit of their desire to own a property in another country.