CHINESE nationals became the largest foreign buyers of U.S. homes last year as they pour billions into American real estate, seeking safe offshore assets, an AFP report said yesterday, quoting a new study.

    A huge surge in Chinese buying of both residential and commercial real estate last year took their five-year investment total to more than US$110 billion, according to the study from the Asia Society and Rosen Consulting Group.

    The sheer size of that total has helped the real estate market recover from the crash that began in 2006 and precipitated the 2008 economic crisis, the study said.

    “What makes China different and noteworthy is the combination of the high volume of investment [and] the breadth of its participation across all real estate categories, including a somewhat unique entry into residential purchases,” the study said.

    The authors of the study said their numbers, based on public and real estate industry data, understate the total. They necessarily miss purchases made by front companies and trusts that don’t identify the sources of the funds.

    While big deals, like the Anbang insurance group’s US$2 billion purchase of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York last year and its failed US$14 billion offer for the Starwood group in March, make headlines, the study said Chinese buying of U.S. homes far outpaces its investment in commercial land and buildings.

    Between 2010 and 2015, Chinese buyers put more than US$17 billion into U.S. commercial real estate, with half of that spent last year alone. But during the same period, at least US$93 billion went into U.S. homes. And in the 12 months to March 2015, the latest period for which relatively comprehensive data could be gathered, home purchases totaled US$28.5 billion.

    That put the Chinese past Canadians, who have long been the biggest foreign buyers of U.S. residential real estate.

    Geographically, Chinese buyers are concentrated in the most expensive markets: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. But Chicago, Miami and Las Vegas have also drawn buyers.

    That focus means they pay well above the average U.S. home price: last year, Chinese buyers paid on average about US$832,000 per home in the United States, compared to the average for all foreign purchases of US$499,600.

    The motivations are broad: some are buying second homes, some are buying as they move to the United States; and some are investing for rental and resale, according to the study.

    Most of the money in U.S. homes, the study noted, is private wealth, not corporate.

    In another development, a Chinese student has purchased a Canadian mansion for a whopping C$31.1 million.

    The Point Grey Mansion, recently ranked the 16th-most expensive home in Vancouver, was sold to Zhou Tianyu, whose occupation is listed as “student” in the land title, local newspaper The Province reported Friday.

    The report said Zhou, with a 99-percent interest in the five-bedroom, eight-bathroom, 1,356-square-meter mansion, all sitting on 0.69 hectares of land, is scheduled to make biweekly mortgage payments of C$17, 079.(SD-Agencies)