They Love LA – Wealthy Chinese Pick Los Angeles as Top Destination

America’s new president may talk about slamming the door on immigrants, but for Chinese millionaires the US is still their top choice and sunny LA has most-favoured city status, according to a recent survey.

Los Angeles ranked as the top destination for high net-worth individuals (HNWI) looking to immigrate out of China, or just to buy overseas property, say the results of the poll conducted by Hurun Research Institute and Visas Consulting Group. San Francisco placed second on the list, with US cities dominating all top five positions.

The survey, which defines HNWI as someone with a net worth of RMB 10 million ($1.5 million) or above, saw Seattle, New York and Boston coming in third, fourth and fifth respectively.

While the US was on top, the second most popular country for emigration in the eyes of China’s HNWIs was the UK, despite some concerns over the impact Brexit would have. Similarly, it’s unknown what, if any, impact Donald Trump’s election will have on the sentiment of Chinese buyers.

Early results from popular Chinese real estate portal Juwai.com indicate the impact of the US election on individual investors could be limited.

“The large majority of transactions by volume are actually made by individuals and families,” Charles Pittar, CEO of Juwai said. “I wouldn’t say the Trump win is as big a shock for the average Chinese property buyer as it might be for some in the UK. We’ve looked into this, and most Chinese think of Trump as just another President.”

Wealthy Chinese Head for the Nearest US Coast

Los Angeles has been a destination for Chinese real estate investors for a few years now. In fact, solo homebuyers arrived to the star-studded destination long before mainland developers like Dalian Wanda and Oceanwide put shovels in the ground.

“The earliest Chinese investment in the California market did not come from the big developers but rather the individual home buyers,” Scott Barrack, former Managing Director of Space Global Real Estate in Shanghai and current Colony’s China Representative, told Mingtiandi in 2014. He estimated that the aggregate value of investment by these wealthy individuals still outstripped spending by the big name developers in the area at the time.

Vancouver’s 15 Minutes Comes To An End

It’s safe to say Chinese investors’ infatuation with the Vancouver housing market is officially over. The Western Canadian city fell to sixth in the survey when it came to the preferred destinations for emigration and overseas property purchases for China’s HNWIs. The news ends a roller coaster two years for the city’s property sector.

The average selling price of detached homes reached C$1.82 million ($1.4 million) at the start of the year and during five-week span in June and July, foreign buyers doled out more than C$885 million ($689 million) on Metro Vancouver real estate.

And then there were interesting stories such as the Chinese student who reportedly bought a mansion in the city for C$31 million ($23.5 million) and the unlicensed realtor who crowdfunded the purchase of a pair of run-down Vancouver apartment buildings to mainland buyers.

The high jinx came to an end in August when the British Colombia government rolled out a 15 percent tax for foreign buyers. The moved caused home sales in the city to drop by 33 percent in September and the survey indicates China’s HNWIs have moved on.