During the 80s, when the Japanese were flush with money, they spent serious amounts of money to buy up US assets, only to see the values of those assets plummet in the years after that.
A few years ago, some middle eastern investor bought John Laing (yes, the home builder with financial problems in the news recently).
Now, it’s the Chinese scooping up REOs, thinking they are bargains.
What they all fail to understand about real estate is this: Among the different types of assets, real estate is the “ultimate momentum market”. Once, the direction of the market turns, it’s suicidal to go against the tide.
