Is today’s Chinese investor in U.S. residential real estate positioning himself similarly to Japan’s commercial real estate investor circa 1990?
A guy can hope…
Updated June 21, 2012, 10:37 p.m. ET
Courting the Chinese Buyer
By LAUREN A. E. SCHUKER
A new wave of buyers from China is snapping up luxury properties across the U.S., injecting billions of dollars into the country’s residential-real-estate market.
The industry is scrambling to court the new buyers. Some developers of new projects are installing wok kitchens, following feng shui principles and putting lucky numbers on choice units; others are packaging property sales with government programs designed to encourage foreign investment. Real-estate agencies are flying representatives to China, and hiring Mandarin-speaking agents.
In Los Angeles, New York and even Miami, buyers mostly from China—and some are from Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea—are radically altering the landscape. Last month, a Chinese couple paid $34.5 million for a Versailles-style mansion on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, Calif. A year earlier, a Hong Kong businessman paid around $28 million for a nearby estate. Over the last six months in New York, several full-floor apartments in a new Manhattan high-rise called One57, each with a price tag of roughly $50 million, have gone into contract with Chinese buyers, according to two people close to the situation.
Late last year, Fang Yi Liu, a businessman from Shanghai, snapped up 17 apartments for a total of $14 million in the Artech, a modern glass building resembling a cruise ship that overlooks the Intracoastal Waterway near Miami.
In a nod to Asian buyers, the building put many of its most luxurious full-floor apartments on the 80th through 88th floors—a clever way to appeal to the Chinese belief that eight is the luckiest number. Apartment 88 is under contract to a Chinese buyer for around $50 million.
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NicK White | Cultura | Getty ImagesSales of 
Listed for: $3,300,000
Listed for: $4,350,000
Listed for: $7,150,000
Housing starts fell unexpectedly, but building permits, an indicator of future construction, rose to levels not seen since 2008. The usual volatility in monthly government surveys is exacerbated in this particular one by the fact that it reads both single and multi-family (apartment) construction.Multi-family has been surging of late due to huge rental demand … and that’s where things today are getting even trickier. A small but growing number of developers are now building single family homes as rentals. Historically, builders did this largely in low-
] , which recently launched a “pre-owned” business, “for the purpose of acquiring, improving, renting and ultimately reselling previously owned homes within select communities and markets which we operate,” according to its recent 10-Q. In other words, Beazer is buying foreclosed homes, 10 percent of which the company originally built, and rehabbing them, then renting them with the intention to ultimately sell. Petersen intends to build as many as 300 homes, with rents averaging $1,800 a month. He is also considering the rent-to-own option, which several other builders have already started to alleviate a backlog of unsold homes and reduce carrying costs. Questions? Comments? document.write("
"It's stunning, Martin, and I'm particularly amazed how the matted feathers of the dying bird brings out the gold tones in the sofa."Photo by Eric Piasecki/
"The Crystal": Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto
This week we'll be exploring the top ten cheapest properties currently for sale in the Tendernob. All the homes we're sharing are up for grabs, meaning we didn't include any listing that has a sale that's pending. We're happy to report that every single abode on this list made it into our prestigious 
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After months of declines, the foreclosure numbers are going up again.Foreclosure starts, the first phase of the process, 
Foreclosure starts” were down 2.6 percent in April from the previous month, according to a new report from Lender Processing Services. As lenders continue to try to modify delinquent mortgages or offer foreclosure alternatives, like short sales or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure, the number of loans entering the foreclosure process are falling. So-called “foreclosure starts” were down 2.6 percent in April from the previous month, according to a new report from Lender Processing Services. But it’s not all good news. FHA loans, those insured by the federal government, saw a huge spike in foreclosure starts, up 73 percent during the month, according to the LPS report. Loans originated in 2008 and 2009 are primarily to blame, although all FHA vintages did see some, albeit far smaller, increases. “In 2008, when the loan origination market virtually dried up, the FHA stepped in to fill the void,” explained Herb Blecher, senior vice president for LPS Applied Analytics. “FHA originations tripled that year, and increased to five times historical averages in 2009. High volumes like that, even with low default rates, can produce larger numbers of foreclosure starts.” Still the numbers mean a big hit to the FHA, which is already operating at well below its congressionally mandated two percent capital reserve ratio. “The 2008 vintage alone represents some $14 billion of unpaid balances in foreclosure, and the overall FHA foreclosure inventory continues to rise,” adds Blecher. FHA took on a huge volume of loans in 2008 and 2009, “with relatively little oversight of underwriting and lending practices,” according to Guy Cecala of Inside Mortgage Finance. That has since changed of course, and FHA is aggressively going after lenders for certain claims and is pursuing large settlements. In the recent mortgage servicing settlement with the nation’s top five lenders, FHA got over $1 billion from the big banks. “There is no question that claims—or losses—on FHA’s 2008 and 2009 business will be high,” says Cecala. “But if FHA is successful in getting large banks and FHA lenders to effectively cover those losses via large cash settlements, then the damage may be contained.” Questions? Comments? document.write("
Today we'll be zeroing in on properties in Pacific Heights. Per realtor standards, the neighborhood's boundaries are Union and California Streets and Van Ness Avenue and Presidio Avenue/Lyon Street. Without further ado, the top ten least expensive properties currently for sale in Pacific Heights. 
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Altrendo Images | Getty Images“This is a mix of home issue,” warned 
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