
Seattle becomes No. 1 U.S. market for Chinese homebuyers - erickhill
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/seattle-becomes-no-1-us-market-for-chinese-homebuyers/
======
abysmallyideal
I recently visited the Seattle area and the surrounding burbs a few months
back. We drove through this one area called "Newcastle" and they have this
mini downtown shopping area. The entire place smelled like a Chinese
restaurant.

Since statistics trail the reality by a decent margin, the person I was with
indicated it had been occurring for already a decade. Several areas already
closed down their offices and moved to more affordable locations with a very
large amount of office space available. It is almost like a dead city in the
burbs with all the empty offices, except for the traffic of people who don't
even need to work there.

The schools have also taken a huge hit in quality with once high ranked public
schools now ranked among the lowest.

As far as real estate goes, the developers don't care, and they influence alot
of local politicians. Foreign buyers just sit on the property with ultra fast
purchases, muscling out alot of new home buyers. Then when the price hits a
high, only then do they sell. All it does is damage the local economy as they
have no real incentive to participate in a constructive manner. On the other
end, attacks and aggressions against minorities fell a bit as the more racist
types get forced out of the market and them and their police buddies can't
randomly attack minorities without some repercussions. All in all, it's
complex, and maybe they'll find some long term resolution.

We also visited the area further outside the burbs and there are (relatively)
massive home development projects everywhere.

------
bfrog
Why is it even allowed for foreigners to buy housing property here? Rent I can
understand, but buy?

If the goal is to make the people living here poorer by the minute due to
housing inflation, we're doing a great job of allowing that to happen this
way.

------
squozzer
King County will probably slap a tax on foreign home-buyers much like
Vancouver did.

Then the buyers will target Portland.

