4 ms·

It's not exactly a reply, but in nearby Fremont, there's more going on than Californians relocating from nearby commuting communities. There is a non-trivial am

It's not exactly a reply, but in nearby Fremont, there's more going on than Californians relocating from nearby commuting communities. There is a non-trivial amount of money coming in from other countries to bid up property as well. Offering my own anecdote, I received a flyer in the mail about a year ago from a local realtor who is well known and has a sizable business (I don't want to promote him by naming him here). He explicitly stated in his flyer that sellers should dress their homes specifically to market to Indian buyers, because Indians made up 90% of his buyers at the time.

ori_b 10y ago
> * There is a non-trivial amount of money coming in from other countries to bid up property as well. And how many of them were engineers moving over for jobs? It's not just Californians relocating from nearby communities, sure -- I moved from Canada (via a few years in New York), for example. But it's unlikely to be some foreign absentee landlord.
- tamana 10y ago
  In my experience foreign absentee landlords aren't even very bad, because they care mainly about parking their assets outside of China, more than maximizing or even collecting rent.
  - throwaway_exer 10y ago
    Foreign absentee landlords are terrible to municipal services in California, since Proposition 13 makes them reliant on sales and franchise taxes instead. In the case of Vancouver, they have made a hollow city.
  - ajmurmann 10y ago
    Not caring about collecting rent often leads to empty houses that now nobody can live in. That's about the worst that can happen if we want to get housing costs down.
  - imtringued 10y ago
    Developers prioritise luxury apartments which they primariy sell to those chinese landlords.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
" There is a non-trivial amount of money coming in from other countries to bid up property as well." That is true and one of my neighbors was a realtor for 20 years and has a number of friends who advertise in foreign countries that they can find you an investment property in California. Typically though, those buyers seem to be "status invested" rather than simply buying a house. So they look for places in San Francisco, or Palo Alto, or Saratoga (places where there is some status associated with owning a home there) rather than say Sunnyvale or Santa Clara. That said, my neighbor came to the US on an H1B with his wife and daughter, is working for a local tech company, and his parents gave him the money for a 20% down payment on his house. That saved him the more typical path it seems of getting a starter house, building a bit of equity and then trading up to a larger house. I expect that being foreign nationals they don't have the gift tax burden that US parents do. On the one hand that is foreign capital fueling higher house prices but at the same time my wife and I got a loan from her parents to help buy our original house, so I don't consider it out of the ordinary if the parents can help out.
- tamana 10y ago
  There is no gift tax burden (except a little paperwork) on the first $5 million of lifetime gifting. Plenty for a house down payment.
  - WillPostForFood 10y ago
    There is a burden in that the $5 million lowers your estate tax exemption. Whereas you can give $14k a year with no tax impact.
tamana 10y ago
Indians buying from India, or Indian-Americans? Usually when people mention foreigners in real estate, they are talking about nonresident investors (often Chinese citizens). Calling out mere ethnicity of homebuyers is weird.
mahyarm 10y ago
In fremont i dont think its foreign money but indian immigrants working in tech more likely. They are not independently wealthy and income is from the local economy.

ori_b 10y ago

> * There is a non-trivial amount of money coming in from other countries to bid up property as well. And how many of them were engineers moving over for jobs? It's not just Californians relocating from nearby communities, sure -- I moved from Canada (via a few years in New York), for example. But it's unlikely to be some foreign absentee landlord.

tamana 10y ago
In my experience foreign absentee landlords aren't even very bad, because they care mainly about parking their assets outside of China, more than maximizing or even collecting rent.
- throwaway_exer 10y ago
  Foreign absentee landlords are terrible to municipal services in California, since Proposition 13 makes them reliant on sales and franchise taxes instead. In the case of Vancouver, they have made a hollow city.
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  Not caring about collecting rent often leads to empty houses that now nobody can live in. That's about the worst that can happen if we want to get housing costs down.
- imtringued 10y ago
  Developers prioritise luxury apartments which they primariy sell to those chinese landlords.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

" There is a non-trivial amount of money coming in from other countries to bid up property as well." That is true and one of my neighbors was a realtor for 20 years and has a number of friends who advertise in foreign countries that they can find you an investment property in California. Typically though, those buyers seem to be "status invested" rather than simply buying a house. So they look for places in San Francisco, or Palo Alto, or Saratoga (places where there is some status associated with owning a home there) rather than say Sunnyvale or Santa Clara. That said, my neighbor came to the US on an H1B with his wife and daughter, is working for a local tech company, and his parents gave him the money for a 20% down payment on his house. That saved him the more typical path it seems of getting a starter house, building a bit of equity and then trading up to a larger house. I expect that being foreign nationals they don't have the gift tax burden that US parents do. On the one hand that is foreign capital fueling higher house prices but at the same time my wife and I got a loan from her parents to help buy our original house, so I don't consider it out of the ordinary if the parents can help out.

tamana 10y ago
There is no gift tax burden (except a little paperwork) on the first $5 million of lifetime gifting. Plenty for a house down payment.
- WillPostForFood 10y ago
  There is a burden in that the $5 million lowers your estate tax exemption. Whereas you can give $14k a year with no tax impact.

tamana 10y ago

Indians buying from India, or Indian-Americans? Usually when people mention foreigners in real estate, they are talking about nonresident investors (often Chinese citizens). Calling out mere ethnicity of homebuyers is weird.

mahyarm 10y ago

In fremont i dont think its foreign money but indian immigrants working in tech more likely. They are not independently wealthy and income is from the local economy.