HSBC Curbs Mortgage Options to Chinese Nationals Buying U.S. Real Estate

Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 9.08.53 AM

Two days ago, I published a post explaining how the super high end real estate bubble had popped, and how signs of this reality have emerged across America. Here’s an excerpt from that post, The Luxury Housing Bubble Pops – Overseas Investors Struggle to Sell Overpriced Mansions:

The six-bedroom mansion in the shadow of Southern California’s Sierra Madre Mountains has lime trees and a swimming pool, tennis courts and a sauna — the kind of place that would have sold quickly just a year ago, according to real estate agent Kanney Zhang.

Not now.

Zhang is shopping it for a discounted $3.68 million, but nobody’s biting. Her clients, a couple from China, are getting anxious. They’re the kind of well-heeled international investors who fueled a four-year luxury real estate boom that helped pull America out of its worst housing slump since the 1930s. Now the couple is reeling from the selloff in the Chinese stock market and looking to raise cash to shore up finances.

In the Los Angeles suburb of Arcadia, where Zhang is struggling to sell the six-bedroom home, dozens of aging ranch houses were demolished to make way for 38 mansions built with Chinese buyers in mind. They have manicured lawns and wok kitchens and are priced as high as $12 million. Many of them sit empty because the prices are out of the range of most domestic buyers, said Re/Max broker Rudy Kusuma, who blames a crackdown by the Chinese on large sums leaving the country.

Well, I have some more bad news for mansion-flipping Chinese nationals.

From Reuters:

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

The Luxury Housing Bubble Pops – Overseas Investors Struggle to Sell Overpriced Mansions

Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 10.50.22 AM

It appears the music may have finally stopped for one of the world’s largest luxury real estate bubbles: London.

It’s well known that foreign oligarchs love London real estate as a means to launder funds, typically “earned” by soaking their host countries dry via corruption and fraud. This has caused absurd and irrational spikes in high-end residential real estate in the English capital, as well as a flood of new construction.

With emerging markets now completely collapsing, the seemingly endless flood of foreign money is drying up, and with it, London real estate.

So has the London real estate bubble popped? Probably.

– From the September 9, 2015 article: Luxury London Home Sales Plunge 26% – Has this Mega Real Estate Bubble Finally Burst?

The first real signs that the global luxury home price bubble had popped emerged last fall in the world’s capital of oligarch money laundering: London.

Since then, we have seen weakness in high end Manhattan real estate, but the trend has now spread and is starting to make itself apparent all over the place.

Yesterday’s Bloomberg article titled,The Surge in U.S. Mansion Prices Is Now Over, is really interesting. Here are a few choice excerpts:

The six-bedroom mansion in the shadow of Southern California’s Sierra Madre Mountains has lime trees and a swimming pool, tennis courts and a sauna — the kind of place that would have sold quickly just a year ago, according to real estate agent Kanney Zhang.

Not now.

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.

Meet the Pied-à-Terre Levy – The Proposed Tax that Could Crush High End NYC Real Estate

Screen Shot 2014-10-15 at 11.29.22 AMIn July, I published a post titled, Introducing Ghost Skyscrapers – NYC Real Estate Goes Full Retard, in which I highlighted many of the current absurdities characteristic of Manhattan real estate. Of all the points made, the most striking statistic from the piece is the fact that:

“The Census Bureau estimates that 30 percent of all apartments in the quadrant from 49th to 70th Streets between Fifth and Park are vacant at least ten months a year.”

There is absolutely nothing healthy about this reality. As someone who grew up less than a mile from that quadrant, I can tell you this is very negative for NYC’s long-term vibrancy. Sure, while the boom is happening and global oligarchs are parking some of their savings in newly built glass towers, you’ll get jobs, construction and sales; but when the boom stops, and it always does, all you’ll be left will are empty multi-million dollar boxes that no one can afford. When such a high percentage of properties are built solely to serve as bank accounts, and not a space to live in, you’ve got a severe case of malinvestment on your hands.

Read more

Like this post?
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G


Follow me on Twitter.