Posted on 07/28/2015 7:44:00 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Chinese buyers feed new energy into Texas real estate
"Investors in Chinese equity markets will flee to safe assets, and few assets offer the combination of relatively modest risk and high returns as U.S. real estate," says a researcher at Zillow.
Diana Olick | @DianaOlick
With investors nervously watching the Shanghai stock market, Chinese are the now biggest foreign buyers of American real estate, and they are setting their sights on the biggest state in the Lower 48.
Texas is seeing a huge influx of Chinese buyers, both investors and owner occupants, thanks to more affordable housing. And recent turbulence in China's stock market is likely to boost demand for U.S. property, not hurt it.
"My schedule is very full. Sometimes I cannot handle more," said Shirley Mei Qing, a real estate agent with Keller Williams in Houston, adding that she's seen a 30 percent increase in Chinese clients in the past year. "The main reason is the house market here—comparably, the price is better than the East and West Coasts."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
And Texas real estate is dirt cheap compared to California and New York.
We hear Chinese spoken in Costco in Austin as often as Spanish.
In addition to being the gateway to the Far East, California is the home of Silicon Valley. New York is the gateway to Europe, and the home of Wall Street, insurance companies galore and the nation’s commercial banking giants. Texas has oil and gas, which are in a slump that may last years, as oil producers scramble for market share by pumping every barrel they can produce to offset the price declines triggered by more supply. The last downward price spiral lasted 15 years. Still, it’s good that Chinese buyers are keeping Texas mortgages above water. It’s silly, though, given that there is so much more room for appreciation in Chinese real estate, due to nugatory holding costs and rapidly rising personal incomes there.
Probably fewer rapists and murderers amongst them than what pours over the border.
The Texas economy is much less dependent on energy than it was 30 years ago.
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