Chinese Buyers
19/04/2023
Chinese buyers are back in the Bay Area
After being sidelined by politics and pandemic, Chinese buyers have returned to the house hunt
In many ways, Bay Area Compass agent Marie Wang’s recent clients were typical of the other Chinese buyers whose numbers she says have doubled since late last year.
They were only interested in new construction. They had been stuck in China since the pandemic, but were now able to fly in from Shanghai for tours. Their personal and business connections were concentrated in the San Francisco Peninsula, so that’s where they focused their search — with extra attention on cities with name-brand cache back home. They also arrived well apprised of the area’s recent precipitous price drops and on the lookout for a deal, she said.
But in one very important way they were different from the other Chinese clients that Wang — who speaks English, Mandarin and Cantonese — usually represents. While her average buyer has a $1-million to $3-million price range, these buyers had a budget over $10 million.
Given the lack of inventory this early in the spring, and the even more sparse listings for new construction homes at that price point, she had only two houses to show them. One was in Palo Alto and still under construction. They bought the other one, in Atherton, already built and on a bigger lot, in an all-cash deal for $12.5 million, about $400,000 under asking.
