The Wall Street Journal Blog is reporting that according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield many American cities are increasingly seeing Chinese landlords. Arizona ranked number seven for Chinese institutional real estate investment in the US from 2008-2014.
Chinese investors who want global real-estate portfolios typically look for trophy projects in cities like New York, Los Angeles and London. Just this month, Hilton Worldwide agreed to sell its flagship Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City to a Chinese insurance company for $1.95 billion—the steepest price tag ever for a U.S. hotel, brokers say, although it isn’t the highest on a per-room basis.
But Chinese investors with smaller war chests want to be seen as international property players too, and they have their eyes on other cities. Over the past two years, more have sought to invest in offices and hotels in inland cities such as Chicago and Houston in the U.S., and Madrid and Frankfurt in Europe, according to the recent report by property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield.
“Chinese investors are distributing their investments across the whole country, not only focusing on selecting assets in prime locations…but also paying more attention to cities with lower prices and greater potential,” said James Shepherd, Cushman & Wakefield’s head of research for Greater China.
The consultancy compiled a list of the top 10 U.S. states for Chinese investment. Though the top spots are no surprise—New York, which claims the top spot with more than $6.7 billion in investment, has a lead of more than $5 billion over runner-up California—others are less obvious. Texas, which comes in at No. 4, benefits from Houston, which has become more familiar to Chinese investors in recent years. The country’s state-owned behemoth China Petrochemical Corp., known as Sinopec, has operations there, and the city gained recognition with Chinese investors with the help of former Chinese basketball star Yao Ming, who played for the Houston Rockets.
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