America For Sale: Foreigners Buying Up U.S. Real Estate
Christian Science Monitor reports: “Earlier this year, real estate marketer Melissa Rubin took some South American clients to a party to promote a new condo that developers hoped to sell before a shovel hit the ground.”
“Even by Miami standards, the party was exotic. There were tigers, chimps, human flamethrowers, jumbo TVs, and the usual red-carpet food and drink. There was also a bikini-clad woman covered in chocolate. “If we take them to a party, it helps them get excited about the project,” says Ms. Rubin of Platinum Properties International.”
Skin color doesn’t matter, just as long as their money is green.
Indeed, developers are going all-out to charm their clients, and more and more those clients include the world’s wealthy elite from such countries as Argentina, Mexico, Australia, and Germany. These foreign buyers, in fact, are one of the important reasons the housing bubble continues to grow in hot markets like Miami, New York, and Las Vegas. In many cases, they’re taking advantage of the strong euro or trying to get their money into a dollar-denominated hiding place.
The result: In Miami, for one, some condo buildings have as much as two-thirds of their units owned by foreigners. Call it America for Sale.
“No question, foreigners are part of the bubble,” says Stephen Wayner, first vice president at Bayview Financial Exchange Services LLC in Miami.
There’s a downside to everything.
July 17th, 2005 at 4:34 am
This is nothing new. The US has been selling its assets and borrowing from foreigners for the purpose of conspicuous consumption for over two decades now.