Chinese homebuyers are making comeback

After a few years of limited activity, Chinese buyers are coming back to the US to buy houses. 

For many years, Chinese were the largest foreign group of buyers of US real estate.  This changed during Covid times when the restrictions put in place by the Beijing government prevented Chinese citizens to travel overseas.  However, now that all restrictions have been lifted, Chinese buyers are back in action and are purchasing a large amount of American houses.  The latest data from the National Assocation of Realtors (NAR) is showing again a significant increase in purchases of US houses by Chinese.  Between April 2022 and March 2023, Chinese accounted for 13% of all foreign buyers purchases. The total amount spent by Chinese buyers was $13.6 billion, which is more than double what they had spent the previous year. This is still significantly below the peak of 2017 when the Chinese purchased $31.7 billion in US houses.

California remains the most popular choice for Chinese who want to purchase American homes, followed by Florida and Texas.  It remains to be seen how the change in regulations in Florida related to Chinese buying certain types of properties may affect the interest of Chinese to buy houses there.