Chinese Investors Embark on U.S. Real Estate Shopping Spree

"Undaunted by Japan’s real estate misadventures in the 1980s — some Japanese investors wildly overpaid for United States property, and Japan eventually suffered one of the biggest property market collapses in history — Chinese investors are fanning out in the United States," reports Julie Creswell. 

"What began with a few isolated purchases two years ago has become a hunt for trophy properties and billion-dollar deals. So far, the kind of fears that arose in the 1980s — unfounded talk that Japan was 'buying up' America — have not surfaced this time. To the contrary, the Chinese, or at least their money, are being welcomed, even celebrated."

"The deals go beyond shimmering glass-and-steel towers: Chinese and Hong Kong investors have also become the second-largest foreign buyers of United States homes, after the Canadians," she adds.

“'They’re just getting started,' said Steve Collins, the international director at Jones Lang LaSalle Capital, a real estate services firm that recently held conferences for potential buyers in Shanghai and Beijing. 'There’s just been some incredible wealth creation there.'”