Chinese homebuyers fuelling US foreign sales

[LOS ANGELES] Henry Nunez, a real estate agent in Arcadia, California, met with so many homebuyers from China that he bought a Mandarin-English translation app for his phone.

The US$1.99 purchase paid off last month, when he sold a five-bedroom home with crystal chandeliers, marble floors and two kitchens, one designed for smoky wok cooking. The buyers were a Chinese couple who paid US$3.5 million in cash.

"Last year, it would've been US$2.8 million," said Mr Nunez, a property broker for 27 years in the city 32 kilometres east of Los Angeles. "The biggest driver is a lot of people wanting to invest their money here."

Buyers from Greater China, including people from Hong Kong and Taiwan, spent US$22 billion on US homes in the year through March, up 72 per cent from the same period last year and more than any other nationality, the National Association of Realtors said in its annual report on foreign home purchases. That's 24 US cents of every dollar spent by …