Posted on 12/05/2008 4:59:44 PM PST by thetru
Chinese property hunters to raid US By Geoff Dyer in Beijing
Published: December 5 2008 20:10 | Last updated: December 5 2008 20:10
Chinese bargain hunters are preparing to descend on American cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, where homeowners have suffered some of the steepest price falls in the US.
SouFun, the biggest real estate website in China, is organising a trip next month to look at properties in California and possibly Nevada. Liu Jian, the company’s chief operating officer, said about 300 people had expressed interest in the idea in the three days since it was advertised, though the company would take only a small group on the first trip.
EDITOR’S CHOICE China lectures US on economy - Dec-04Lex: US-China dialogue - Dec-04Paulson in last stand against weaker renminbi - Dec-03“Given the problems in the Chinese market now, many people have been asking us about taking a look at overseas markets, especially the US,” he said.
The trip would focus on California, particularly San Francisco and Los Angeles, where big Chinese populations might make his clients more comfortable, but might also include Nevada.
Restrictions on taking money out of China would be an obstacle, he added, but some potential investors had an overseas connection such as a foreign passport that would make it easier.
Property professionals say there is considerable interest among wealthy Chinese, who often hold a high proportion of assets in property, in investing abroad.
“The US market absolutely terrifies me,” said one Shanghai-based real estate executive. “However, there are plenty of people here who think this a great time for bottom-fishing.”
There is opposition in China to SouFun’s plan. “Unless these people need a house in the US to live in, this is senseless,” said Yi Xianrong, a real estate expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “A few years ago there was a lot of talk about investing in German real estate but most of the people who did so lost a lot of money.”
SouFun, owned by Australia’s Telstra, provides information on property markets in more than 100 cities and has more than 40m registered users.
Tea alllllll over. LMAO
You eat arr youa meramine? Must be memba of crean prate crub.
I smell a reality show in there....
Calling HGTV
A bitter irony to say the least.
btt
The problem is that in large measure immigrants don’t assimilate. The Draft is over, there is no shared experience and very little in the way of patriotism, by and large.
Been to Hawaii lately???
yitbos
Ahhh yes, the Pearl City Tavern...
...military veteranarians...hehehe, yer killin’ me!!!
In an increasing global economy, we focus on foreigners buying American soil. But we forget, Americans have been investing and buying property overseas for the last century. Some of the buying, is merely flowing back this way.
BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese bureaucrats who spent taxpayers' money on a $700-a-night Las Vegas hotel and visits to Hawaiian beaches and a San Francisco sex show might have gotten away with it if someone hadn't lost a bag on the Shanghai subway.
The dozens of documents and receipts in the bag, with officials' names and enthusiastic comments attached, were swiftly posted on the Internet, spreading like wildfire across Chinese cyberspace over the past week. That brought swift punishment for some officials involved — and another disgusted shrug from Chinese citizens all-too-familiar with corruption.
Officials gambling and spending government money on shopping sprees and sightseeing during overseas trips is hardly new. But making the lurid details public certainly is, illustrating the growing power of the Chinese public to use the Internet to expose wrongdoing.
"These are public resources, and people have the right to know how they were used," Wang Xixin, a law professor at Peking University, told The Associated Press Friday.
The bag was thought to have been left on the subway by a travel agent, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. The man who posted them online described himself as an IT engineer — and an angry one.
The documents chronicle the adventures of 23 officials from the eastern city of Wenzhou during five days of a three-week trip that cost taxpayers $94,000, Xinhua reported. Their Communist Party committee has demanded repayment of all unapproved expenses.
Xinhua said the group visited nearly a dozen cities, many more than authorized, and spent just five days on official business — far fewer than ordered.
The reasons for the trip? Everything from "An Overview of American History" to "Honest and Clean Government Management."
In my friends neighborhood, can't beleive he still lives there, he says they have always planted corn in the back yards, and chickens and roosters are everywhere, but now they are planting corn in the front yards!!
Back in the 80's there seemed to be a never ending report about excesses in the US military. $500 for a hammer, $1000 for a toilet seat. The list seemed to be never ending. But one general stated that the fact the news reports of this came out was a good thing. Meaning that suppliers that overcharged the military was being exposed.
The report of abuses is a similarly good thing for China. And I expect to see more reports. Especially given how news travels so well on the internet.
In conclusion, I want to see corruption weeded out of China. Do you? Or do you just want to relish in it? There are many in China that want to expose this sort of corruption. And the reason is simple, a less corrupt China is a more prosperous and competitive China. And everyone IN China wants to see a more prosperous and competitive China. Many outside of China, merely want to relish in the corruption instead of seeing it weeded out. I suppose it's because they have nothing to gain by a more competitive China.
Commies are godless, lawless, and uncivilized. I want the Commies out of Communist China.
yitbos
I agree that communism should be out of China and democracy should be in its place. But........if a gradual phase out leads to a more properous China vs a sudden ousting with a collapse of the economy, then I vote for a gradual phase out. One only has to look at what happened in the former USSR where the rubble collapsed when the economic and political change was sudden and dramatic.
As a result, China has experienced a much healthier transition than Russia. Russia is highly reliant on oil and natural resources for her exports. China, manufacturing. And China is much better plugged into the world as a free market economy than Russia.
It would not bother me at all to see their regime suffer the same fate as Gorbachev.
yitbos
I'm okay with that perspective. A democratic system is always the better political system. My concern, is that I don't want China to suffer the same fate as the post USSR.
I see little benefit to China, if they suddenly became democratic AND remained an "India" or "Philipines" (both are democracies) for the remainder of the century. But if they transition slowly, and can become a giant sized version of Japan (potentially 10 times larger, economically), then that is the road I want them to take.
I want to see corruption end in China and democracy to flourish there. Probably more so than most on the FR.
Hi Joe, I buy you loooooon tyme.
“said one Shanghai-based real estate executive. “However, there are plenty of people here who think this a great time for bottom-fishing.”
Well, that pretty much tells us what China thinks of us.
“Bottom-fishing’...of course that’s exactly what our good ol’ USA free traitors thought of China just a few years ago, isn’t it? What goes around comes around I suppose.
Or Chad. That would be fine with me.
yitbos
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