I have seen reports that a lot of money is expatriated from China into real estate because it's easy to launder that way. I don't know about rents, but oversea

I have seen reports that a lot of money is expatriated from China into real estate because it's easy to launder that way. I don't know about rents, but overseas investment certainly drive up price to own in Auckland NZ and Vancouver, Canada, though the latter may have stopped due to changing tax policies. Auckland is as big as SF. If you're investing in property overseas you want the value to be stable or increasing, though. I don't think these people are value investors who would jump into a market with declining prices because the houses were suddenly underpriced -- quite the opposite, I think some would rush to get out in that case.