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| "An all cash purchase." |
Oct 16, 2014 - Welcome to Arcadia – The California Suburb Where Wealthy Chinese Criminals are Building Mansions to Stash Cash(link):
The city, population 57,600, projects that about 150 older homes—53 percent more than normal—will be torn down this year and replaced with mansions. The deals happen fast and are rarely listed publicly. Often, the first indication that a megahouse is coming next door is when the lawn turns brown. That means the neighbor has stopped watering and green construction netting is about to go up … Arcadia is a concentrated version of what’s happening across the U.S. The Hurun Report, a magazine in Shanghai about China’s wealthy elite, estimates that almost two-thirds of the country’s millionaires have already emigrated or plan to do so. – From the Bloomberg article: Why Are Chinese Millionaires Buying Mansions in an L.A. Suburb?
The surge in foreigners buying up U.S. real estate has been well documented in recent years. Of all this buying, no nation has demonstrated a bigger increase in purchases than China. In fact, it is estimated that 24% of all foreign purchases of domestic real estate this year have come from China, up 72% from last year. In my post from July, Chinese Purchases of U.S. Real Estate hit $22 Billion as The Bank of China Facilitates Money Laundering, I noted that:
In some California communities, 90% of real estate buyers are from China. Yes, 90%. Naturally, many of them are buying multi-million dollar homes in “all cash” transactions.
Well it appears that one of those communities is the 57,000 person Los Angeles suburb known as Arcadia. The suburb had a relatively insignificant Asian population of 4% in 1980, but it is now 59%. Of course, I could care less what the ethnic mix of any particular suburb is, but what does concern me is that a lot of the recent money coming in seems to be from questionable characters. The buyers are getting access to U.S. real estate via the EB-5 visa program, and of the 10,000 of these given away this year, 85% went to the Chinese. Oh, and it’s estimated some 20% of these homes sit vacant. A great use of resources.
Jul 9, 2014 - Chinese Purchases of U.S. Real Estate Jump 72% as The Bank of China Facilitates Money Laundering (link):
American citizens already have a hard enough time affording a home. Squeezed out by financial oligarchs buying tens of thousands of properties for rental income, and faced with real wages that haven’t budged since the mid-1970s, the demographic of U.S. citizens that historically dominated the new home market has been forced to live in their parents’ basements. Just to kick em’ when they’re down, Americans now face the impossible task of competing with laundered Chinese money.
Of course, this isn’t a new trend. I first covered it in January 2013 in the post: Corrupt Chinese Politicians are Buying Billions in U.S. Real Estate. This was then followed up a couple of months ago in the piece: Zillow Opens the Floodgates to Chinese Buyers in Order to Keep Housing Bubble 2.0 Inflated.
While this trend may not be new, it is certainly accelerating. According to the National Association of Realtors in its annual report on foreign home purchases, transactions from Greater China (includes Hong Kong and Taiwan) were up 72% in the past year to $22 billion. In some California communities, 90% of real estate buyers are from China. Yes, 90%. Naturally, many of them are buying multi-million dollar homes in “all cash” transactions.
Apr 2, 2014 - Zillow Opens the Floodgates to Chinese Buyers in Order to Keep Housing Bubble 2.0 Inflated (link):
Earlier this week, Michael Snyder made quite a splash in the alternative media world with his article: The Chinese Are Acquiring Large Chunks Of Land In Communities All Over America.
Meanwhile, just last year I covered how corrupt Chinese are laundering their money through U.S. real estate in my post: Corrupt Chinese Politicians are Buying Billions in U.S. Real Estate.
This is a very important trend that we must keep our eyes on in the years ahead. Particularly since private equity buyers and hedge funds can no longer make a return on buy-to-rent, the real estate industry will become increasingly desperate to pitch American property to anyone willing to keep Housing Bubble 2.0 inflated.
From Bloomberg:
Zillow Inc. agreed to make its U.S. property listings available to Chinese consumers through a partnership with a Beijing-based website.
E-House Holdings Ltd.’s Leju real estate site will carry Zillow listings that include homes for sale by agent and owner, units in projects under construction and foreclosures and short-sale properties, Seattle-based Zillow said today in a statement.
Chinese buyers spent more than $11 billion on U.S. real estate last year, with an average $425,000 purchase, Zillow said. The Leju-Zillow site, to be operated by the U.S. company, will be ready around midyear, according to the statement.
“Brokers and agents with listings on Zillow are now able to reach Chinese home shoppers who are ready to invest in the U.S. market, with no additional cost or effort,” Errol Samuelson, Zillow’s chief industry development officer, said in the statement.
Have fun being a peasant under your Wall Street and Chinese feudal lords.
Jan 22, 2013 - Corrupt Chinese Politicians are Buying Billions in U.S. Real Estate(link):
Many of us spent much of 2012 confused about how the U.S. real estate market was improving within the context of a broke and unemployed citizenry. Well as time has passed the answers to our questions have been revealed. The criminals are piling in. I first explained a couple of weeks ago how the financial oligarchs in the United States are currently in a bidding war to become America’s slumlords in my post: America Meet Your New Slumlord: Wall Street.
Now we also discover that part of the bid to U.S. real estate has come from another criminal class. In this case, we are talking about corrupt Chinese officials who are pulling their ill gotten gains from their homeland and desperately placing it in real estate all over the globe. From The Telegraph:
China's Communist party cadres launch property fire sale (link): As China’s new leaders intensify a campaign to root out corruption, thousands of Communist party officials have been panicked into a fire sale of their illicit properties while billions of pounds have been smuggled overseas.
It said the volume of deals had intensified by “a hundred times” after Xi Jinping, the incoming Chinese president, warned that corruption could kill the Party and put one of the country’s most vigorous and resolute politicians, Wang Qishan, in charge of stamping out graft.
It also claimed that an astonishing $1 trillion (£630 billion), equivalent to 40 per cent of Britain’s annual GDP, had been smuggled out of China illegally in 2012.
Marco Pearman-Parish at Corporation China, a company in Beijing that helps clients find properties abroad, said there had been a strong rise in clients looking for homes in the Cayman Islands.
In the United States, the National Association of Realtors said that more than $7 billion of properties had been bought by Chinese in the US last year. Some high-end homes are now specifically built for rich Chinese with ponds for koi carp and a second kitchen for pungent cooking.
I guess word has gone out globally that the U.S. is open for business as far as the global criminal class is concerned. They can rest assured knowing they will never face repercussions in this lawless land.
At least that is what they think. What we must do is never forget who is buying all of these properties and when the time comes they should all be seized and these crooks sent back to the place they came from.
(Mod: In light of all of this, I wonder if Sierra Madre's City Council might consider getting that new General Plan in place sooner rather than later. You know, while there is still a Sierra Madre left to plan?)
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