Note: I am not a real estate investment advisor. Nor do I play one on TV.
California and China are symbiotic economically in more was that the etching on the back of your iPhone: “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China.”
Despite a minor fad for Hayek, China still has really shaky property rights. Which means the Middle Kingdom’s billionaires seek havens abroad for their earnings, legal and illegal. And what better place than the American state where property taxes are low, restrictions on new building high and the weather fantastic?
But life isn’t always a bowl of maraschino cherries. Bloomberg Pursuits just reported, “End of an Era as China’s Love Affair With U.S. Real Estate Fades”: “Total sales to Chinese buyers in the 12 months through March fell for the first time since 2011, to $27.3 billion from $28.6 billion a year earlier, according to an annual research report released by the National Association of Realtors. The number of properties purchased by Chinese also declined to 29,195 units from 34,327 units.”
New York City-based Keller Williams Realty Landmark broker David Wong told the news outlet, “The residential-property market here, especially for those priced between $2.5 million to $3 million, has been affected by China’s measures to control capital flight.”
However, according to a July 22 report by Rhodium Group, “Pending investment in greenfield projects add up to $9.5 billion, mostly driven by real estate developments in New York and California, but also projects in automotive (such as Yanfeng’s plants in Tennessee and South Carolina or Faraday Future’s expansions in California and Nevada) and materials (Jushi’s glass plant in South Carolina and Sun Paper’s paper mill in Arkansas).”
More insight comes from the site of the great Israeli military historian and strategist Martin van Creveld. He ran a guest article by Ilya Atanasov, founder & CEO of moneyfact.org and senior fellow on finance at the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research in Boston. Atanasov wrote that China’s material ascent from Maoist socialism has been real, yet China’s challenge to U.S. economic preeminence has been overestimated.
Atanasov: “This mythic ascent to global pre-eminence has been just that – a myth. The reality is much less lustrous. Since the late 1980s, the state-controlled banking system has undergone several wholesale bailouts. China’s rulers blazed new ground in mathematics and statistics as the total of provincial GDPs quite often surpassed the central government’s nationwide figure. In leaked diplomatic cables, then-future Premier Li Keqiang was quoted as smiling that GDP numbers are ‘for reference only’. Yes, China’s economy has grown spectacularly, but probably much less so than widespread perceptions. And it happened on the wings of the most epic debt binge in human history. Years and decades of uncorrected malinvestment have inflated colossal bubbles in stocks, real estate and industrial capacity.”
He details the financial crisis. And he points out China’s demographic problem, from its 35-year-old “one child” policy (just turned into two-child policy), now is bringing a demographic crisis, of two few youngsters taking care of too many senior citizens.
As a result, “According to consensus estimates, some $800 billion fled China in just a year. Chinese looking to park their money out of the country have caused epic property bubbles in major global cities.”
But that has to end sometime. Even without the new capital controls, there’s only so much capital that can flee.
Atanasov is more bullish on India, which as a younger, growing populace, economic decentralization and democracy.
Then there’s the uncertainty of the U.S. presidential election and China, concerning trade deals, potential currency wars, problems with artificial islands in the South China Sea, kooky North Korean kingpin Kim Jong Un and China-Russia energy deals.
The California-China relationship: can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
Longtime California commentator John Seiler’s email is: writejohnseiler@gmail.com