Comment by JimmyM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JimmyM | Hacker News Reader

Given that Chinese investors have been buying significant amounts of real estate abroad (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/30/uk-china-property-o...), does anyone have any idea what this will mean for housing in other countries?

Higher house prices? (Chinese bears fleeing to overseas property like American bears flee to gold)

Lower house prices? (Chinese investors attempting to recoup their losses/keep enough cash on hand to pay their debts and other obligations)

Neither/something else? (perhaps Chinese real estate investment has a negligible effect on house prices)

This is a significant question for me because house prices in the UK are far too high for my partner and I to have much chance of ever buying a property, at present, even with a very healthy deposit.

Chinese buyers have a much bigger impact on the western coasts of the US and Canada (Vancouver specifically) than they do in the UK. Foreign buyers in the UK are mostly European or from the Middle East and conditions in both places are probably making people favor parking capital in the UK.

If you are Chinese and able to get your money out of the country and into foreign property you would probably hold on to that property for as long as you possibly can; by being outside of China it is worth far more than anything you might use to cover domestic debt.

We'll get to find out if these houses have been bought using laundered cash or if the owners are using financing dependent on foreign income.

If these houses are largely investment properties purchased to hedge against the home market, then it's more likely the former.

I expect we will see higher housing prices as the rich try harder to move more of their money out of China.

The buying power of Chinese consumers already pushed up price for many things, from commodity to luxury goods to real estates. It is unavoidable nature of society growth. This has very little to do with Chinese investors. Very few people got rich through stock market in China (probably the same everywhere).

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