[quote=mixxalot]Well I am seeing a lot more Chinese in San Diego renting and buying places in group tours than just a few years ago. I will preface my thoughts that I have no issues with them as I do have friends from China and Asia but the problem is lack of common sense with overpaying real estate prices. I was telling my buddy the other day that I can buy a home outside of coastal areas for under 500K and a nice sailboat with a live aboard slip for a fraction of coastal real estate and have a better experience being in a big place and have water recreation.[/quote]
Again, I said it before, whether you think it’s a good time or not good time to buy is irrelevant to some buyers, since it depends. For the 1% wealthy in China you are talking about, buying a home here and possibly losing 20% of the value here is still probably better than keeping money in China and losing 100% of it when the communist regime are looking for scapegoats to blame for the financial crash. And while it seems like a big deal to people here, for some of these buyers a few million is pocket change. To them, it’s like taking a depreciation hit the the moment you drive off the lot with a new car. So it’s a completely different ballgame for them. You can bet the 1% right now are more scared about government confiscating their wealth OR finding any reason to put them in jail as a scapegoat, and less worried about losing 20-30% on say $1-3 million home.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ada9ca96-4bab-11e5-b558-8a9722977189.html
So basically, the stock market crashes, government probes brokerage firms, bans short selling, warns media about reporting on bad financial news, and throws a few people in jail. And this is just the start…And people thought government intervention in the US to save wall street was bad…
While you say it doesn’t bother you, it does seem like you do have a problem with foreign buyers buying, otherwise you wouldn’t have brought it up. It only accounts for about 18-20% of all RE purchases, and really only more so if you only look exclusively at the high end, in certain areas, namely tied to the public schools and proximity to where other asians are congregating. So unless you are in the market for the high end, it’s unlikely their purchases (cash or otherwise) is going to affect your ability to buy a home, since for most purposes, it’s unlikely those cash buyers are in the same market.
I doubt many of them, for example, are buying condos or homes in sorrento valley, for example. You can blame those people who bought those properties who wanted to capitalize on the achievable cash flow, given how high rent prices are right now. And you can blame the same folks for holding on to those homes until they (hopefully) get a bigger payout next year. And those buyers are pretty diverse.
So you don’t really need to worry about San Diego turning into Irvine or Montrey Park or Arcadia. Even in carmel valley, only 14% of the households would be classified as asian.
