Image Credit: REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

By Jack Detsch
The Diplomat
Special to The Post

On an unusually clear March day in Northern California, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan gathered with several hardhat-wearing Chinese developers on a patch of dirt near the city’s waterfront. With local press cameras snapping away, the developers, led by China-based Zarsion Holdings Chief Weixun Shan and local planner Mike Ghielmetti, broke ground on “Brooklyn Basin,” a $1.5 billion development along a decrepit stretch of industrial waterfront.

Brooklyn Basin, which will bring roughly 3,100 new residents and 200,000 feet of retail space to Oakland by 2021, is just one example of major Chinese real estate investment in the Bay Area. Investors are descending upon the region in huge numbers: about 35% of Chinese residential real estate purchases in the U.S. occur in California, according to a study conducted by the National Association of Realtors. The same survey found that Chinese investments in U.S. real estate amounted to $22 billion in the year ending in March 2014, making up almost a quarter of foreign purchases.

“It is just a natural phenomenon.” Ellen Osmundson, Managing Partner of MJ Real Estate International in San Francisco explained to The Diplomat. “When more than 30 percent of the population in San Francisco is Chinese, it is natural that Chinese homebuyers are gravitating towards the culture, language and food that they are familiar with.”

The allure is getting stronger: San Francisco has always boasted scenic beauty, epitomized by the Golden Gate Bridge, the nearby wine-producing counties of Napa and Sonoma, and the winding California coast. The Bay Area also boasts exceptional local schools. But it is the region’s thriving economy, led by a surge of tech money from Google, Apple, and Facebook, and a legion of venture capitalists, that has put the region on the map in a new way, making the area a haven for elite companies and sought after jobs.

That has led to a burst in Chinese investment in condominiums and single-family homes.

Read more at: http://thediplomat.com/2014/08/chinese-investors-fuel-california-housing-bubble/