Chinese buy Over $110 Billion Wirth of Real Estate in the US Over the Past 5 Years

Chinese nationals became the largest foreign buyers of US homes last year as they pour billions into American real estate, seeking safe offshore assets, according to a new study.

A huge surge in Chinese buying of both residential and commercial real estate last year took their five-year investment total to more than $110 billion, according to the study from the Asia Society and Rosen Consulting Group.

The sheer size of that total has helped the real estate market recover from the crash that began in 2006 and precipitated the 2008 economic crisis, they said.

And despite a slowdown due to Beijing's clampdown on capital outflows, the figure for the second half of this decade is likely to double to $218 billion, the study said.

"What makes China different and noteworthy is the combination of the high volume of investment (and) the breadth of its participation across all real estate categories," including a "somewhat unique entry into residential purchases," the study said.

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430 Horseshoe Hill, Bolinas, California

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Anti Gravity Switched Off for China's Real Estate Market...again

AFTER years of talking up China’s gravity-defying property markets, local land kings are now singing a darker tune. On May 26th Yu Liang, the president of Vanke, China’s biggest developer, declared that the “golden era” in which “everybody makes money out of property is gone.” That came on the heels of comments by Pan Shiyi, the boss of Soho China, another property firm, likening the country’s real-estate sector to the Titanic: “It will soon hit an iceberg.”

Official data show the country’s property market is indeed coming down to earth. During the first four months of this year, the value of residential sales fell by nearly 10% versus a year ago, and construction activity on new homes fell by a quarter. The decline on a month-to-month basis is even more striking.

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China Still in a Housing Bubble?

IN CHINA, property prices can keep going up forever. At least, that is what optimists seem to think. They point out that the country is undergoing the largest urbanisation in history. The throngs of migrants from the countryside all need homes, the argument runs. China’s swelling middle classes, many of whom live in shoddy 1980s housing, are also eagerly moving to fancier flats or McMansions. The result has been a spectacular property boom over the past decade.

At first glance, it seems the good times are still rolling (see chart). During the first three quarters of this year residential sales shot up by 35% versus the same period a year ago. Prices for new homes rose year-on-year in September in 69 of the 70 biggest cities. In Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing prices jumped by more than 20%; in slightly smaller cities, such as Nanjing and Xiamen, they rose by around 15%.

Despite these signs of rude health, even some of China’s biggest property moguls appear to be growing uneasy. Wang Shi, the chairman of China Vanke, the country’s largest residential-property firm by volume, has called the market a bubble. Wang Jianlin, the country’s richest man and the chairman of Dalian Wanda, a property giant turned entertainment firm, acknowledges that parts of the country may be experiencing a property bubble, though he thinks it “controllable”. Li Ka-Shing, a Hong Kong tycoon who has long been bullish on China, has started to sell his mainland holdings.

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1095 Market Project Ready to Move Forward

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1979 Mission Street Early Design Rendering

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350 8th Street Renderings

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22 Units Below Market at 1600 Market For Sale

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72 Townsend Street Rendering

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Chinese Company Invests $1.5 billion in Oakland Waterfront

Wow.  Given the real estate issues in China right now, this is an interesting development.  I wonder if the Chinese experience in American real estate will be better than the Japanese.  Hope so in many ways. 

That land ought to have been redeveloped some time ago.  It could be a nice place.  Lots of Oakland could be a really nice place.  Yet...I have to wonder if they won't have issues with Occupy et al.  oy.

Transbay Tower Gets Final Approval

Plans for the soaring, 1,070-foot-tall Transbay Tower received their final approvals from the Planning Commission Thursday, clearing the way for construction of what will become the city's tallest building.

The decision also may have opened the door to the desperately needed funding to build what planners say will be the crown of the downtown skyline at 101 First St.

"This is the culmination of five years of work," said Paul Paradis, senior manager for Hines, the Houston developer of the tower. "It's cause for real celebration."

It's also a welcome bit of good news for Hines, which saw its deep-pocketed investment partner in the project, insurance giant MetLife, pull out this summer. Since then, a Sept. 30 deadline for Hines to provide the public Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which owns the land, with a non-refundable $5 million line of credit has passed with no action taken.

Negotiations are continuing, said Adam Alberti, spokesman for the authority.

But while Paradis declined to discuss details of the tower's financing, he said the commission's actions could provide a real boost in attracting investors.

"An entitled piece of land in San Francisco is a valuable asset and investors realize that," he said.

The 61-story tower is the centerpiece of an effort to re-envision the city's downtown.

The new office building will be part of a 145-acre Transit Center District that will include commercial high-rises, residential towers, hotels and retail space, all wrapped around a planned Transit Center that will be the hub for local and regional bus lines, as well as the underground terminus for the proposed Caltrain extension and the statewide high-speed rail line.

The new center is part of an effort to create what the plan for the area calls a "dynamic urban center." Expanding the city's traditional downtown, with its emphasis on high-density office building, to the transit-rich SoMa neighborhood would make the Transit Center "the center of downtown, reinforcing the primacy of public transit in organizing the City's development pattern."

San Francisco's Future Skyline? Or Wishful Thinking?

Another Scary Real Estate Chart

H/T Socketsite.

Real Estate: This Graph Should Worry You

While the subprimes are going to settle out next year there's a whole new wave to follow that that won't break until 2012. 2012. Ouch!

HEY! Great Captains of Industry! We need a boom to off set this in the Bay Area? Any chance...oh. NM. ;)