Jesse pointed out this article bloomberg: Asian Buyers Buoy New Home Demand in California’s Orange County. It turns out we’re not the only place that get’s the hype about suitcases of cash:
“You know why Orange County is doing better?” said Wang, a native of Taiwan who splits her time between Shenzhen in southern China, where she oversees a toy-manufacturing business, and Irvine, California, where she raised her three children. “It’s because all my neighbors are from China and Taiwan, and they all bought their homes in cash.”
And you know what ‘doing better’ means? It means house prices dropping by ‘only’ 39%.
Demand has kept property values from declining as much in Orange County as in other regions. The median home price was $392,000 in January, down 39 percent from the June 2007 peak. That’s less than the 49 percent decline across Southern California and the 51 percent slump nationwide, DataQuick said.
Pretty good news eh?