....or for lower. Many of these people buying really don't care what property values do in the next 10-20 years. They are protecting their money from China/their home gov't, and buying something they can actually leave to their children. Property laws in China are VERY different from the United states; in the long term, china/the collective owns all the land in china. Your right to "buy" land and build a house and live in it is actually purchased for 60-70 years, and is more like a lease than actually owning land. You can only obtain a land use right, not a fee simple absolute like in the US.

This is wealthy folks from china politically diversifying where that wealth is stored. They literally don't care if they don't make a return, or even if the principal shrinks. They don't have access to this type of asset in China.

It is frustrating because i do not want to see the housing crisis painted in racial or nationalist colors. What i do want to see, is for people who want to actually BE in the bay area to have access to housing, and for that need to be valued more than the aboslute price of a parcel (which is what is currently prioritized, and it appears foreign absentee owners are able to

From a societal standpoint, i wish we could get some weight behind this idea: The People working in the Bay area need a workable place to live, more than a very small number of very richpeople all over the world want to have their wealth be preserved through real estate investment.

Get a bank account somewhere. Or hell, buy a big house here in California, then move to California and live in your big house. The pied a terre/ghost house trend is a shitty use of our much-needed housing.