World's economic woes damping sales in US high-end property market

Boston

THE six-bedroom mansion in the shadow of Southern California's Sierra Madre Mountains has lime trees and a swimming pool, tennis courts and a sauna - the kind of place that would have sold quickly just a year ago, according to real estate agent Kanney Zhang.

Ms Zhang is shopping it for a discounted US$3.68 million, but nobody's biting. Her clients, a couple from China, are getting anxious. They're the kind of well-heeled international investors who fuelled a four-year luxury real estate boom that helped pull America out of its worst housing slump since the 1930s. Now, the couple is reeling from the selloff in the Chinese stock market and looking to raise cash to shore up finances.

Across the US, the story is much the same. The world's economic woes - from China to Russia to South America - are damping sales in the high-end real estate market. Haywire overseas stock markets and dropping currency values caused in part by plummeting oil prices are dulling demand for mansions, penthouses and winter es…