5 ms·

There appears to be only slight anecdotal evidence that "the Chinese" are a significant, over-represented, or manipulative force in Bay Area real estate. Or di

There appears to be only slight anecdotal evidence that "the Chinese" are a significant, over-represented, or manipulative force in Bay Area real estate. Or did I miss it?

donsupreme 12y ago
I get the rest, but what does "over-represented" mean?
- dguaraglia 12y ago
  I think s/he means that there's no evidence that there are more Chinese investors than one would expect. Let's say there are only 3 kinds of investors: Chinese, Chilean and Czech. In a ideal world where those countries have the same population and the same wealth distribution, you'd expect each country to be represented equally, so you'd expect 33% of investors to be Chinese, 33%$ to be Chilean and 33% to be Czech. Now, if you see that 40% of investors are Chinese, then they are clearly over-represented. It's kind of difficult to define 'over-representation' in this case, because the normal parameter (population of country of origin) doesn't really apply. Now, if you define it as 'number of people with the money to invest in housing in California', maybe you have a way to measure it...
  - stcredzero 12y ago
    Don't underestimate the effect of information sharing in inter-personal social networks. (Of the people variety, probably facilitated by online social networks.) The Chinese ethnic communities in the Bay Area have well established networks of people with a culture of facilitating opportunities for each other.
    - msie 12y ago
      The Chinese ethnic communities in the Bay Area have well established networks of people with a culture of facilitating opportunities for each other. Ya, like other groups in California don't?
      - msie 12y ago
        Surprised I was down-voted for pointing out something that's mildly racist. Do we ignore all the back-scratching that's been happening in the California high-tech sector (and one that's lacking in diversity too)?
        stcredzero 12y ago
        Surprised I was down-voted for pointing out something that's mildly racist. I am Asian myself, though not Chinese. There are such groups associated with my ethnicity which engage in such mutual support. I, personally, am not laboring under the impression that this is any kind of proof of one group's superiority over another. Please produce your evidence to the contrary. So, is any mention of ethnicity an automatic indicator of mild racism? How is this at all logical? It's not, so I'm pleasantly surprised that you were downvoted. Do we ignore all the back-scratching that's been happening in the California high-tech sector (and one that's lacking in diversity too)? No. If you look back on my posts, you'll find frequent comparisons of mine of the Bay Area tech sector to the old boy network in Mad Men.
      - stcredzero 12y ago
        Ya, like other groups in California don't? Some of the Asian communities do a better job of it than other ethnic communities. That isn't racist. Facts aren't racist. Only people's interpretation of facts can be racist. It only says something about you if your only interpretation is that the condition is directly tied to race. If the condition isn't tied to race, then noting this might cause other people to benefit themselves economically through cooperation.
    - Decade 12y ago
      People form networks with their friends to help each other. This is not a remarkable thing, and it doesn't benefit all Chinese. I have a couple friends, immigrants from China, who wanted to retire and move to a part of San Francisco with less steep hills. They complained that every time they found a place, it would be snatched away by somebody with a whole lot of cash. Mainly, somebody from China. Eventually, they did find a nice little house in the desired neighborhood, much smaller, only a few yards away from a bunch of grocery stores and the church that they attend. So, that worked out for them.
  - tsotha 12y ago
    Eh, what? Chile has 18 million people, The Czech Republic has 11 million. China has 1,356 million. I would expect the Chinese investors to comprise 98% of the three nationalities.
    - dguaraglia 12y ago
      > In a ideal world where those countries have the same population and the same wealth distribution, you'd expect each country to be represented equally... That part was kinda important to understand the example :)
      - tsotha 12y ago
        Obviously I missed the "same population" part. I still don't get the point, though. You can still say a certain ethnic group or nationality is over-represented by adjusting for wealth and population.
msie 12y ago
Yes, I think the tech firms are more to blame here. But there's more than enough blame to go around: govt, real estate business, sellers...
jonnathanson 12y ago
The article gives a number, stating that Chinese nationals account for about 11% of home buyers in the US. That's a nationwide figure, and I'd guess the proportion is higher in the Bay Area than it is in the national aggregate. Up to the reader to determine whether 11% constitutes a significant or manipulative force in the market. Followup questions I'd have: 1) Historically, what proportion of SF or nationwide housing is sold to foreign buyers? 2) Historically, what proportion of that figure is sold to Chinese buyers? Especially curious about #1. If the Chinese are just taking the place of yesterday's big foreign buyers (Russian, Japanese, or whoever), then we can put this into a typical perspective. If indeed they're raising the overall percentage, and not just their own representation within it, that's a more compelling statistic in favor of the author's thesis. Either way, I would have liked a bit more analysis in the piece.
- kapilkale 12y ago
  No- they account for 11% of foreign home buyers.
  - jonnathanson 12y ago
    Ah. I misread that, then. A much weaker stat to have cited, in that case.
michaelochurch 12y ago
I really dislike the attribution of this stench to one nationality. It's a mix of dirtbags, foreign and domestic, from all over the world. The only thing the pattern has in common is that dirty money is flowing into real estate in the world's top cities: London, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, and many more. In New York and London, it's "the Russians" who are blamed, as if they were the only one; in San Francisco, it's "the Chinese"; in parts of Southern Europe, it's "the Arabs". In reality, it's nonresident dirtbags from all over the world, including the U.S. Attributing it to one nationality is racist, unfair, and misleading. Really, the problem is dirtbag global elite speculators (and, likewise, the average Russian or Chinese isn't a dirtbag, and the average American ultra-HNWI is one) but that's too many words so people just shorten it to "foreign speculators". (By the way, speaking as an American, I am totally fine with Londoners and Parisians calling American nonresidents "dirtbag foreign speculators". It's not racist to hate the global elite of all stripes; it's patriotic no matter where you are.) Is it "the Chinese"? No. It's corrupt ultra-HNWIs from all over the world. People just blame "the Chinese" because a fifth of the world's population is Chinese, but it's really unfair because most Chinese people (like 99.9 percent) aren't the dirtbags buying up Palo Alto, and many are the victims of the dirtbags buying up Palo Alto.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  The problem is where the money comes from: in Russia and china, alot of it is corruption based and buying property abroad is a great way to launder it as well as prepare an exit strategy. This isn't all of it: we just lack decent domestic investment options in china and have no choice but to look abroad. But the sort of balance that will lead to is bound to be bad for the global economy.
- vorg 12y ago
  > dirty money is flowing into real estate in the world's top cities: London, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong That's one of two trends here. There other is specifically Chinese, like Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, and Koreans before them, emigrating to various English-speaking cities around the Pacific Rim, such as Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle, and San Francisco/San Jose. The (Northern) "California Housing Bubble" is a conflux of these two trends.

There appears to be only slight anecdotal evidence that "the Chinese" are a significant, over-represented, or manipulative force in Bay Area real estate. Or did I miss it?

donsupreme 12y ago

I get the rest, but what does "over-represented" mean?

dguaraglia 12y ago
I think s/he means that there's no evidence that there are more Chinese investors than one would expect. Let's say there are only 3 kinds of investors: Chinese, Chilean and Czech. In a ideal world where those countries have the same population and the same wealth distribution, you'd expect each country to be represented equally, so you'd expect 33% of investors to be Chinese, 33%$ to be Chilean and 33% to be Czech. Now, if you see that 40% of investors are Chinese, then they are clearly over-represented. It's kind of difficult to define 'over-representation' in this case, because the normal parameter (population of country of origin) doesn't really apply. Now, if you define it as 'number of people with the money to invest in housing in California', maybe you have a way to measure it...
- stcredzero 12y ago
  Don't underestimate the effect of information sharing in inter-personal social networks. (Of the people variety, probably facilitated by online social networks.) The Chinese ethnic communities in the Bay Area have well established networks of people with a culture of facilitating opportunities for each other.
  - msie 12y ago
    The Chinese ethnic communities in the Bay Area have well established networks of people with a culture of facilitating opportunities for each other. Ya, like other groups in California don't?
    - msie 12y ago
      Surprised I was down-voted for pointing out something that's mildly racist. Do we ignore all the back-scratching that's been happening in the California high-tech sector (and one that's lacking in diversity too)?
      - stcredzero 12y ago
        Surprised I was down-voted for pointing out something that's mildly racist. I am Asian myself, though not Chinese. There are such groups associated with my ethnicity which engage in such mutual support. I, personally, am not laboring under the impression that this is any kind of proof of one group's superiority over another. Please produce your evidence to the contrary. So, is any mention of ethnicity an automatic indicator of mild racism? How is this at all logical? It's not, so I'm pleasantly surprised that you were downvoted. Do we ignore all the back-scratching that's been happening in the California high-tech sector (and one that's lacking in diversity too)? No. If you look back on my posts, you'll find frequent comparisons of mine of the Bay Area tech sector to the old boy network in Mad Men.
    - stcredzero 12y ago
      Ya, like other groups in California don't? Some of the Asian communities do a better job of it than other ethnic communities. That isn't racist. Facts aren't racist. Only people's interpretation of facts can be racist. It only says something about you if your only interpretation is that the condition is directly tied to race. If the condition isn't tied to race, then noting this might cause other people to benefit themselves economically through cooperation.
  - Decade 12y ago
    People form networks with their friends to help each other. This is not a remarkable thing, and it doesn't benefit all Chinese. I have a couple friends, immigrants from China, who wanted to retire and move to a part of San Francisco with less steep hills. They complained that every time they found a place, it would be snatched away by somebody with a whole lot of cash. Mainly, somebody from China. Eventually, they did find a nice little house in the desired neighborhood, much smaller, only a few yards away from a bunch of grocery stores and the church that they attend. So, that worked out for them.
- tsotha 12y ago
  Eh, what? Chile has 18 million people, The Czech Republic has 11 million. China has 1,356 million. I would expect the Chinese investors to comprise 98% of the three nationalities.
  - dguaraglia 12y ago
    > In a ideal world where those countries have the same population and the same wealth distribution, you'd expect each country to be represented equally... That part was kinda important to understand the example :)
    - tsotha 12y ago
      Obviously I missed the "same population" part. I still don't get the point, though. You can still say a certain ethnic group or nationality is over-represented by adjusting for wealth and population.

msie 12y ago

Yes, I think the tech firms are more to blame here. But there's more than enough blame to go around: govt, real estate business, sellers...

jonnathanson 12y ago

The article gives a number, stating that Chinese nationals account for about 11% of home buyers in the US. That's a nationwide figure, and I'd guess the proportion is higher in the Bay Area than it is in the national aggregate. Up to the reader to determine whether 11% constitutes a significant or manipulative force in the market. Followup questions I'd have: 1) Historically, what proportion of SF or nationwide housing is sold to foreign buyers? 2) Historically, what proportion of that figure is sold to Chinese buyers? Especially curious about #1. If the Chinese are just taking the place of yesterday's big foreign buyers (Russian, Japanese, or whoever), then we can put this into a typical perspective. If indeed they're raising the overall percentage, and not just their own representation within it, that's a more compelling statistic in favor of the author's thesis. Either way, I would have liked a bit more analysis in the piece.

kapilkale 12y ago
No- they account for 11% of foreign home buyers.
- jonnathanson 12y ago
  Ah. I misread that, then. A much weaker stat to have cited, in that case.

michaelochurch 12y ago

I really dislike the attribution of this stench to one nationality. It's a mix of dirtbags, foreign and domestic, from all over the world. The only thing the pattern has in common is that dirty money is flowing into real estate in the world's top cities: London, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, and many more. In New York and London, it's "the Russians" who are blamed, as if they were the only one; in San Francisco, it's "the Chinese"; in parts of Southern Europe, it's "the Arabs". In reality, it's nonresident dirtbags from all over the world, including the U.S. Attributing it to one nationality is racist, unfair, and misleading. Really, the problem is dirtbag global elite speculators (and, likewise, the average Russian or Chinese isn't a dirtbag, and the average American ultra-HNWI is one) but that's too many words so people just shorten it to "foreign speculators". (By the way, speaking as an American, I am totally fine with Londoners and Parisians calling American nonresidents "dirtbag foreign speculators". It's not racist to hate the global elite of all stripes; it's patriotic no matter where you are.) Is it "the Chinese"? No. It's corrupt ultra-HNWIs from all over the world. People just blame "the Chinese" because a fifth of the world's population is Chinese, but it's really unfair because most Chinese people (like 99.9 percent) aren't the dirtbags buying up Palo Alto, and many are the victims of the dirtbags buying up Palo Alto.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
The problem is where the money comes from: in Russia and china, alot of it is corruption based and buying property abroad is a great way to launder it as well as prepare an exit strategy. This isn't all of it: we just lack decent domestic investment options in china and have no choice but to look abroad. But the sort of balance that will lead to is bound to be bad for the global economy.
vorg 12y ago
> dirty money is flowing into real estate in the world's top cities: London, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong That's one of two trends here. There other is specifically Chinese, like Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, and Koreans before them, emigrating to various English-speaking cities around the Pacific Rim, such as Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle, and San Francisco/San Jose. The (Northern) "California Housing Bubble" is a conflux of these two trends.