NEW YORK – April 4, 2012 – China’s great wall of cash is pouring into the struggling U.S. property market, from multimillion-dollar mansions on the West Coast to venerable hotels on the East Coast.
Buyers from mainland China and Hong Kong are snapping up luxury homes, often paying cash, in major U.S. cities such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. They’re coming by the dozens to buy foreclosed properties in downtrodden cities in Florida and Nevada. Chinese buyers are even starting to snap up pricey commercial buildings and hotels in Manhattan.
Chinese interest in U.S. real estate began climbing during the U.S. housing meltdown, when plunging property prices made the U.S. a magnet for global buyers. Today, interest is growing as a rising yuan – up more than 8 percent since mid-2010 – gives the Chinese greater purchasing power, and the mainland’s restrictions on property purchases encourage them to look overseas. With U.S. single-family home prices a third lower since 2006, the U.S. also compares favorably with other top markets for Chinese investment, such as the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
“For China, the world is an emerging opportunity,” says Andrew Taylor, founder of Juwai.com, a real estate site based in Hong Kong that was launched in 2011 to match Chinese buyers with U.S. real estate. “We’re talking about a huge chunk of people with cash and the desire” to invest overseas.
In the U.S., the Chinese are now the second-largest foreign buyers of homes, behind Canadians, accounting for $7.4 billion of sales in the 12 months ended March 2011, up 24 percent from the previous 12 months, according to the National Association of Realtors. Buyers from China and Hong Kong also spent $1.7 billion on commercial property in the U.S. in 2011, more than quadruple their investment in 2008, says Real Capital Analytics.
Those numbers likely understate Chinese investment, as investors may buy property under business entities they’ve set up in the U.S., says Patrick O’Neill, founder of O’Neill Group, a Hong Kong-based company that helps Chinese buyers find U.S. property.
Roughly 40 percent of Chinese buyers want property in the U.S. as investments, while 60 percent are buying in anticipation of their children going to school here, or for business or immigration purposes, says Steven Lawson, chief executive of Windham China, a firm that helps match Chinese buyers with U.S. sellers.
Lily-Sui Zhang, 30, says her husband’s Beijing family bought a house in South Pasadena, Calif., last year so her three young children would have access to good public schools. The family thought investing in the U.S. was “probably more stable than in Beijing” due to concern about a Chinese real estate bubble, Zhang says.
Some Chinese buyers also see the U.S. as an attractive place to invest because on the mainland, Chinese never own land – they just lease it from the government.
While mainland China allows each citizen to exchange only $50,000 of yuan into foreign currency per year, wealthy clients often do business overseas and have offshore funds they can use to buy property, says Alan Liu, managing director of North Asia for Colliers International, a brokerage and real estate firm. The currency restriction doesn’t apply in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China.
Hong Kong residents Lillian and Frank Yan say they bought a condo in Honolulu this year because U.S. property prices are relatively low compared with major cities in Asia. They plan to stay there two to four weeks a year, and rent it out the rest of the time.
“The majority of our equity is tied to the Hong Kong or Chinese economy, so we wanted to diversify our portfolio,” says Lillian Yan, 42.
Copyright © 2012 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Kathy Chu and Julie Schmit, USA TODAY. Chu reported from Hong Kong; Schmit reported from San Francisco.
U.S. unemployment aid applications hit 4-year low
WASHINGTON (AP) – March 22, 2012 – The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell to a four-year low last week, bolstering the view that the job market is strengthening.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dropped 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000. That’s the lowest level since March 2008, just months into the Great Recession. The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, dipped to 355,000, matching a four-year low.
Applications have steadily declined since last fall. The drop has coincided with the best three months of hiring in two years. From December through February, employers added an average of 245,000 jobs per month. That’s pushed down the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three years.
The report suggests that employers added a similar level of jobs this month. This week’s figures cover the same week that the Labor Department surveys companies about hiring in March. Applications are slightly lower this week than in February’s survey week, which points to more job growth.
“U.S. employment growth looks to have continued in March at a respectable pace,” Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets.
Companies are hiring more because the economy is picking up. The economy grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in the final three months of last year. That was better than the 1.7 percent rate in the previous quarter.
There are other signs the economy is steadily recovering. Consumers are more confident and have stepped up spending. Auto sales are rising. Even the battered housing market is showing signs of improving.
January and February comprised the best winter for sales of previously occupied homes in five years, according to figures released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors. January sales were the most since May 2010, the final month that a federal tax credit for homebuyers was available. Sales dipped in February but were still 13 percent higher than six months earlier.
Developers are even seeking to build more homes. Requests for permits to build single-family homes and apartments rose 5 percent last month. That brought the annual rate for permits to the highest since October 2008, though they are still running at about half the rate of a healthy market.
The number of people receiving unemployment aid fell. Nearly 7.3 million people received benefits in the week ending March 3, the latest data available. That’s about 140,000 fewer than the previous week.
One concern is that rising gas prices will force consumers to cut back on discretionary spending. That could weigh on economic growth and slow hiring. The Federal Reserve says it expects oil and gas prices to temporarily boost inflation but predicts that longer-term inflation should remain stable.
The job market still has a ways to go to fully recover from the Great Recession. More than 12.8 million people remain unemployed and the economy still has 5 million fewer jobs than before the downturn.
But the more robust job market has caused some so-called “discouraged workers” to start looking again. The workforce rose by nearly a half-million in February.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press, Christopher S. Rugaber, AP economics writer.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dropped 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000. That’s the lowest level since March 2008, just months into the Great Recession. The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, dipped to 355,000, matching a four-year low.
Applications have steadily declined since last fall. The drop has coincided with the best three months of hiring in two years. From December through February, employers added an average of 245,000 jobs per month. That’s pushed down the unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, the lowest in three years.
The report suggests that employers added a similar level of jobs this month. This week’s figures cover the same week that the Labor Department surveys companies about hiring in March. Applications are slightly lower this week than in February’s survey week, which points to more job growth.
“U.S. employment growth looks to have continued in March at a respectable pace,” Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets.
Companies are hiring more because the economy is picking up. The economy grew at an annual rate of 3 percent in the final three months of last year. That was better than the 1.7 percent rate in the previous quarter.
There are other signs the economy is steadily recovering. Consumers are more confident and have stepped up spending. Auto sales are rising. Even the battered housing market is showing signs of improving.
January and February comprised the best winter for sales of previously occupied homes in five years, according to figures released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors. January sales were the most since May 2010, the final month that a federal tax credit for homebuyers was available. Sales dipped in February but were still 13 percent higher than six months earlier.
Developers are even seeking to build more homes. Requests for permits to build single-family homes and apartments rose 5 percent last month. That brought the annual rate for permits to the highest since October 2008, though they are still running at about half the rate of a healthy market.
The number of people receiving unemployment aid fell. Nearly 7.3 million people received benefits in the week ending March 3, the latest data available. That’s about 140,000 fewer than the previous week.
One concern is that rising gas prices will force consumers to cut back on discretionary spending. That could weigh on economic growth and slow hiring. The Federal Reserve says it expects oil and gas prices to temporarily boost inflation but predicts that longer-term inflation should remain stable.
The job market still has a ways to go to fully recover from the Great Recession. More than 12.8 million people remain unemployed and the economy still has 5 million fewer jobs than before the downturn.
But the more robust job market has caused some so-called “discouraged workers” to start looking again. The workforce rose by nearly a half-million in February.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press, Christopher S. Rugaber, AP economics writer.
奧蘭多房產庫存下降31％，導致平均價上漲16％
在奧蘭多購買現房的數量將繼續穩步下降，在後面開始於2010年7月在16,563和9,253在於。 2012年2月，總庫存為31.36％，低於它在2011年2月。
單戶住宅和公寓的庫存都下降：18.46％32.68％和公寓單家庭。
結合目前的銷售速度，目前的庫存相當於一個家庭的4.99個月在奧蘭多供應（從6.21個月的供應量在2011年2月和下降5.35個月的供應量從2012年1月）。
ORRA主席斯蒂芬·貝克，解釋說：“經濟學家考慮一個家庭6個月的供應量是一個買家和賣家之間的平衡市場的一個指標，”一個4.99的步伐傾斜略向賣方為受益人的，和買家在同一時間將要尋找合適的家園，因為低庫存的挑戰。“
2012年二月銷售近40％均一般買賣(Tradition Sale);賣空(Short Sale) 33.33％和法拍(foreclosure)銷售同比增長26.86％。相比之下，在2011年2月的正常銷售佔26.36％，而短期銷售佔23.73％和法拍屋佔49.91％。
一般買賣(Tradition Sale);的銷售者都應該振作起來，貝克說，“一般買賣(Tradition Sale)銷售已經真正實現了起飛;他們僅比上個月增長29.02％，超過這個時間去年和17.14％。這是一個指標，短期銷售和法拍屋終於被衝出庫存和更多的買家轉向一般買賣(Tradition Sale)的家庭。“
單戶住宅和公寓的庫存都下降：18.46％32.68％和公寓單家庭。
結合目前的銷售速度，目前的庫存相當於一個家庭的4.99個月在奧蘭多供應（從6.21個月的供應量在2011年2月和下降5.35個月的供應量從2012年1月）。
ORRA主席斯蒂芬·貝克，解釋說：“經濟學家考慮一個家庭6個月的供應量是一個買家和賣家之間的平衡市場的一個指標，”一個4.99的步伐傾斜略向賣方為受益人的，和買家在同一時間將要尋找合適的家園，因為低庫存的挑戰。“
2012年二月銷售近40％均一般買賣(Tradition Sale);賣空(Short Sale) 33.33％和法拍(foreclosure)銷售同比增長26.86％。相比之下，在2011年2月的正常銷售佔26.36％，而短期銷售佔23.73％和法拍屋佔49.91％。
一般買賣(Tradition Sale);的銷售者都應該振作起來，貝克說，“一般買賣(Tradition Sale)銷售已經真正實現了起飛;他們僅比上個月增長29.02％，超過這個時間去年和17.14％。這是一個指標，短期銷售和法拍屋終於被衝出庫存和更多的買家轉向一般買賣(Tradition Sale)的家庭。“
Drop in foreclosures lifts overall median price up, but pulls overall sales numbers down
A sharp decline in the sales of foreclosure homes contributed to a drop of 17.83 percent in Orlando's overall sales for January, despite increases in the number of both short sales and normal sales. Foreclosure sales in January decreased by 57.61 percent when compared to January of 2011, while short sales increased 23.69 percent and normal sales increased 19.92 percent.
The increase in short sales and normal sales — with the higher prices these sales types typically command — plus a nice increase in the median price of foreclosure sales, lifted Orlando’s overall median price 13.80 percent over that in January 2011 ($108,000 in January 2012 and $94,900 in January 2011).
However, the January 2012 overall median price is 9.24 percent lower than it was in December 2011. That decline is somewhat expected, says Baker. "There has been a five-year trend of median price decreases from December to January, starting back in December of 2007.”
The January 2012 median prices of both normal sales and short sales dropped in comparison to January 2011: normal sales by 2.10 percent (from $143,000 to $140,000) and short sales by 5.26 percent (from $95,000 to $90,000). The median price of foreclosure sales, however, increased by 13.33 percent in January 2012 (from $75,000 to $85,000).
opyright © 2011 Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association. All rights reserved.
The increase in short sales and normal sales — with the higher prices these sales types typically command — plus a nice increase in the median price of foreclosure sales, lifted Orlando’s overall median price 13.80 percent over that in January 2011 ($108,000 in January 2012 and $94,900 in January 2011).
However, the January 2012 overall median price is 9.24 percent lower than it was in December 2011. That decline is somewhat expected, says Baker. "There has been a five-year trend of median price decreases from December to January, starting back in December of 2007.”
The January 2012 median prices of both normal sales and short sales dropped in comparison to January 2011: normal sales by 2.10 percent (from $143,000 to $140,000) and short sales by 5.26 percent (from $95,000 to $90,000). The median price of foreclosure sales, however, increased by 13.33 percent in January 2012 (from $75,000 to $85,000).
opyright © 2011 Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association. All rights reserved.
美國總統歐巴馬今天宣布將加速從中國來的觀光簽證，台灣遊客無須簽證！！
ORLANDO, Fla. – Jan. 19, 2012 – President Barack Obama is in Orlando today to announce new international travel policies. He will issue executive orders, according to The Orlando Sentinel, that make it easier for foreign visitors to travel to the U.S. Obama will specifically target growing economies, such as China, Brazil and India.
“The more people come to the country, the more money they are spending … and obviously this has a stimulative effect on the economy,” a White House official said.
While the changes do not directly impact foreign homebuyers, certain changes could make the U.S. and Florida more appealing. According to a copy of the executive orders received by The Orlando Sentinel, they include:
• 100 more consuls dispatched to Brazil and China to reduce visa processing times. It currently takes weeks for a visa approval in those countries.
• Faster airport checkpoints for “low risk” visitors. A program already in place will be expanded.
• Taiwan added to no-visa countries. Once finished, visitors from Taiwan will be able to visit the U.S. without prior approvals.
• A national tourism strategy.
• A new website for foreign visitors. Development would fall under the Commerce Department.
“Every 35 international visitors we welcome to the U.S. generates one American job that can’t be outsourced,” according to a statement from Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
Source: The Orlando Sentinel, Jan. 19, 2012, Mark K. Matthews, Orlando Sentinel Washington Bureau
© 2012 Florida Realtors®
“The more people come to the country, the more money they are spending … and obviously this has a stimulative effect on the economy,” a White House official said.
While the changes do not directly impact foreign homebuyers, certain changes could make the U.S. and Florida more appealing. According to a copy of the executive orders received by The Orlando Sentinel, they include:
• 100 more consuls dispatched to Brazil and China to reduce visa processing times. It currently takes weeks for a visa approval in those countries.
• Faster airport checkpoints for “low risk” visitors. A program already in place will be expanded.
• Taiwan added to no-visa countries. Once finished, visitors from Taiwan will be able to visit the U.S. without prior approvals.
• A national tourism strategy.
• A new website for foreign visitors. Development would fall under the Commerce Department.
“Every 35 international visitors we welcome to the U.S. generates one American job that can’t be outsourced,” according to a statement from Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
Source: The Orlando Sentinel, Jan. 19, 2012, Mark K. Matthews, Orlando Sentinel Washington Bureau
© 2012 Florida Realtors®
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