Foreign Property News | Posted by Si Thu Aung
The trade dispute between the U.S. and China reached a fever point in recent days, as Washington and Beijing have gone tit for tat in imposing higher tariffs on imports.
Chinese investors have been the biggest purchasers of U.S. residential real estate for six consecutive years, but President Trump’s trade war, and China’s efforts to reduce its national debt and boost economic growth, could change that.
And if the impasse continues, the effects could be even more far-reaching.
“The Chinese government could place stricter capital controls about taking money out of China and buying in America,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors.
China’s government has already put pressure on Chinese nationals to reduce their commercial real-estate investments.
The trade war also adds to U.S. economic uncertainty at a time when real-estate demand is weakening even in some of the country’s hottest housing markets.
In 2014, China supplanted Canada as the source of the largest share of foreign buyers of U.S. residential real estate, according to data from the National Association of Realtors.
In 2018 dollars, Chinese buyers accounted for roughly 25% of total foreign investment in U.S. residential real estate. Canada was No. 2 at 9%.
Of the 284,000 properties sold to foreign buyers last year, some 40,400, or 15%, were bought by Chinese nationals.
Five years earlier, Chinese nationals had purchased 23,075 homes, representing just 12% of all properties sold to foreign buyers.
Ref: Property Report
