Overseas Chinese are Pushing Up Housing Prices in the West

Recently, housing prices in most Western cities are constantly dropping except in overseas Chinese communities such as Chinatown in New York, Flushing Chinatown in Queens, Brooklyn 8th Avenue Chinatown and the Chinatown in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities such as Vancouver and Toronto in Canada and Sydney and Melbourne in Australia.

I personally think that from the phenomenon of the rich Chinese pushing up housing prices in the West, we can see the reason for the high domestic housing prices in China. The unhealthy housing market also creates problems for the social economy and people’s lives.

Many experts, informed people within the housing industry and government officials insist that the reason for high housing prices in China is people’s “iron-clad necessity” for housing. But this excuse can’t explain the fact that there are still way too many empty houses on the market. In fact, when most people worry that they don’t have enough money for a house, the rest — who have loads of money and are afraid of inflation — rush to buy several houses at a time.

The gap between the rich and the poor in China is strikingly large, and this is the very reason for the speculation in the housing market. Many rich Chinese are entering the housing market in Europe and North America, and it’s not only because they have more money that they can spend. The reason for such a house-buying zeal also lies in people’s minds: the Chinese people have a predilection for housing investment. Their special love for houses has clashed violently with the living habit of the Westerners.

Now the Western world can no longer tolerate their houses being robbed by the Chinese people: in Vancouver, the English media are reporting with great zeal the baffling situation where the overseas Chinese are purchasing houses in bulk. They point out that if the housing prices are too high, the biggest victims will be the next generation. Traditionally, Westerners spend no more than one-third of their post-tax income on houses, but now with the crazy increase of housing prices, they can’t even afford a house of their own, and they have to change their old lifestyles. They also think that if housing prices are too high, then the expense on the house would take up most of their income. Accordingly, the money they can spend on education, marriage, children, entertainment such as going to theater, traveling and shopping will be greatly cut down. In other words, the consumption power of the people will be largely limited, and this will inevitably have a serious effect on the healthy social economy.

Compared with the intolerable attitude in the West towards rising housing prices, we in China should attach much more importance to this issue, or else not only will housing prices not drop to a normal and acceptable level, the serious consequences in the long-term will also be immeasurable.