patrick.net

The rules are such that if you're rich you can already get a visa so this doesn't change too much.

http://www.quora.com/What-is-immigration-like-for-wealthy-rich-people

"A number of countries essentially will sell immigration access to the wealthy, by offering immigrant status either for a flat out fee, or for a promise to invest in a business and create jobs. The USA, Canada and many other nations have done this."

tts says

"A number of countries essentially will sell immigration access to the wealthy, by offering immigrant status either for a flat out fee, or for a promise to invest in a business and create jobs. The USA, Canada and many other nations have done this."

That paragraph really simplifies matters a bit. It's not as simple as just paying a flat out fee here, and it's not as simple as just promising to invest in a business. The process is more complicated than that, as I've said on previous threads.

The proposal made by those in Congress is silly. All it would do if foreigners jump on this is make the price of housing go up for everyone else. That's not really a good thing, as I said on another thread, but maybe it'll end up like Pebble Beach...

Still, I do question whether this would actually work. People would have to think buying a house here is a good investment and worth the money. Even if you live somewhere that's not as expensive as SF, LA, or NY, buying a cheaper house and then buying a rental property is property not worth it to many foreigners -- it's a hassle to have a rental property to them, even with a manager, and they might not be convinced it's a good investment. I think people often overassume the desire of rich foreigners to uproot and move here when they try to hype these things.

She says nearly every listing she's put on the market in San Marino "has had at least one full price cash offer from a buyer from mainland China."

Liar. Every used house salesman says stuff like this, but the statistics never bear it out.

I was just in HK/China, and I talked a lot with friends/relatives about buying property in the US. There is a grain of truth in these claims about foreigners buying stuff up in the US, but it is mostly hype. For those wealthy enough that money is NO object, sure, they would consider buying a house in the US as a status symbol and as somewhere to escape summer heat. For the majority of newly-wealthy Chinese, they see property as an investment, and buying in the US is a dumb idea to them. This is mostly due to the taxes levied on property here (and income if one were to consider moving here). From a financial standpoint, moving from China to the US is a really stupid move for someone with wealth, and most foreigners know this. Hence, there really aren't mobs of foreigners "snapping everything up" in the RBA. While open houses may be full of Indians & Chinese in higher-end areas, I would bet that most are naturalized US citizens that have worked hard and saved.

Some folks may recall a couple of previous posts from me that were of a somewhat contrary opinion. My opinion has changed now that I have actually gone and talked with some of these "wealthy foreigners."

bmwman91 says

While open houses may be full of Indians & Chinese in higher-end areas, I would bet that most are naturalized US citizens that have worked hard and saved.

Yes, and in fact Census statistics agree that a lot of people in so-called "fortress" cities are immigrants who have lived here for a long time. They might speak a funny language and people named Maggie Navarro who sells houses in San Marino might not understand their native language, but they're from here, for all intents and purposes.

bmwman91 says

I was just in HK/China, and I talked a lot with friends/relatives about buying property in the US. There is a grain of truth in these claims about foreigners buying stuff up in the US, but it is mostly hype. For those wealthy enough that money is NO object, sure, they would consider buying a house in the US as a status symbol and as somewhere to escape summer heat. For the majority of newly-wealthy Chinese, they see property as an investment, and buying in the US is a dumb idea to them. This is mostly due to the taxes levied on property here (and income if one were to consider moving here). From a financial standpoint, moving from China to the US is a really stupid move for someone with wealth, and most foreigners know this.

Yes, exactly. In order to keep gaining that wealth, those people have strong incentives to stay in China. What are they going to do, get an engineer job in Silicon Valley? People who got rich in China are either robber baron types (in which case there's little incentive to move to somewhere they might be subject to criminal enforcement action) or they are super smart and want to keep their money intact and don't necessarily see an overpriced suburban house that needs work as a good investment in a country that is having economic failings while China appears to be prospering (and let's be honest, many Americans and resident immigrants see housing as an investment too, whether wrongly or rightly).

Sure, people are far more mobile and can telecommute more, but there is a certain level of inertia to uprooting your family, especially when moving to a different country and when you need visas and other things. Some people say, "it's for American schooling," but that's a stupid rationale because if you're in China, you can pay for schooling better than a Cupertino public school at some elite private school (perhaps even a school for international kids).

By the way, a crappy house in the suburbs is not really a trophy property for a rich person when cost is no object -- even for Chinese and HKers that are used to living in cramped spaces. That said, even though many people claimed that lots of rich Chinese were buying condos in San Francisco in the overpriced luxury towers that were built recently, whether as pied a terre or otherwise, the high foreclosure and subsequent sales stats of those buildings have not borne that claim out either.

Some of you are probably going to cite the people who steal money from the Chinese government and need to get it the hell out of China, but how often does that really happen? Just because you read one article from a random news source that 1 person did this doesn't mean it's common.

By the way, the Chinese mafia types who hide out here typically don't buy property (because they don't want to be found!) and come here illegally usually (again, don't want a paper trail). They don't even necessarily feel safe in the US in some cases...

It's the "Damn foreigners are taking all our houses and women" mentality.