Are Home Buyers From China Competing With Americans?

Home Affordability - Briefs - Trends

By   Aaron Terrazas on 4/28/2017   Share

Chinese buyers shop for higher-priced American homes, on average, than U.S. buyers.

Almost a third of Chinese home shoppers on Zillow focus on six expensive coastal markets: San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego and Boston.

In the U.S. markets that are most popular for Chinese home shoppers, there is a wider gap in the price tier that U.S. versus Chinese home shoppers are targeting.

中国买家在美购房瞄准的价格普遍高于美国买家。

在 Zillow 平台上的中国买家群体中，有近三分之一的买家紧盯美国 6 大高端海滨城市房产市场：圣何塞、旧金山、西雅图、洛杉矶、圣地亚哥和波士顿。

在最受中国买家青睐的房产市场中，中、美两国买家瞄准的房产价格差异悬殊。

In recent years, international home shoppers have emerged as a highly visible driver of housing market demand in a number of global cities including London, New York, Vancouver, Toronto and Miami. Some residents and local policymakers are concerned about the perceived competition these international home shoppers pose for local buyers. In response, a number of cities have enacted or considered new regulations or restrictions on international home buyers with the aim of preserving affordability for local buyers and slowing fast-moving markets.

 We test the perception of competition using data about Chinese home shoppers on Zillow in 2016. The results suggest that international home shoppers compete primarily with more affluent locals since they tend to target high-priced homes.

Chinese Shoppers Aim Upmarket

Chinese home shoppers are overwhelmingly interested in higher-priced homes than U.S. home shoppers: In 2016, the median American home shopper on Zillow was looking at a home listed at $253,000, while the median Chinese home shopper on Zillow was looking at a home listed at more than twice that at $572,000.

 中国购房者瞄准高端市场

Some of this gap is driven by the markets where these home shoppers are searching. Chinese shoppers looking at homes in the United States tend to focus on a handful of pricey coastal markets including San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego and Boston. In 2016, 32.3 percent of Chinese home shoppers on Zillow focused on these six markets, compared to 7.5 percent of U.S. home shoppers.

 如此悬殊的差距背后，有一个重要原因是购房的目标城市。数据显示，中国买家倾向价格不菲的海滨房产市场，以圣何塞、旧金山、西雅图、洛杉矶、圣地亚哥、波士顿这 6 个城市为首。2016 年，访问Zillow 的中国买家有 32.3% 瞄准以上 6 个城市，但美国买家的相应比例仅有 7.5%。

But the gap remains even after controlling for geographic differences in where home shoppers are searching. The median American home shopper on Zillow in 2016 was looking at a home priced at the 57th percentile of homes for sale in a given metro market, while the median Chinese home shopper on Zillow was looking at a home priced at the 73rd percentile.

 然而即使对地域偏好这一变量加以控制，中美房屋买家目标价格的差距依旧存在。同样根据 2016 年访问 Zillow 平台的中美购房者数据来看，将待售房产价格由低到高排列，针对同一城市，美国买家搜索的房价中值位于第 57 百分位，而中国买家搜索的房产中值则在第 73 百分位。换句话说，美国买家的目标房价中值高于 57% 的待售房产价格，而中国买家目标价格中值则高于 73% 的待售房产价格。

The 16 percentage-point gap between the medians suggests that Chinese home shoppers are competing primarily with more affluent American home shoppers nationwide. Of course, there is substantial variation across metro markets.

 16 个百分点的差距说明，中国买家主要与美国比较富裕的买家竞争。当然，不同城市的房产市场也有很大的差别。

The largest gaps between the median target price percentile of Chinese and U.S. home shoppers are in Detroit (62nd percentile for U.S. shoppers versus 88th percentile for Chinese shoppers); Miami-Fort Lauderdale (51st versus 76th); Boston (53rd versus 76th), and Seattle (60th versus 83rd).

 中美两国买家购房目标价格中值对应的百分位差距最大的城市有：底特律、迈阿密-劳德代尔堡、波士顿和西雅图。

The narrowest gaps are in Phoenix, where Chinese shoppers are actually looking at cheaper homes than U.S. shoppers (51st percentile for U.S. shoppers versus 41st percentile for Chinese shoppers); Atlanta (59th versus 65th), and Dallas-Fort Worth (53rd versus 60th).

 而中美买家百分位差距最小的城市有：菲尼克斯、亚特兰大和达拉斯-沃斯堡。其中只有在菲尼克斯，中国买家的购房价格低于美国买家。

In general, markets with more Chinese home shoppers show a larger gap in the target price tier of U.S. and Chinese home shoppers. In other words, in the markets with the most Chinese home shoppers, there is the least direct competition between the average target prices of Chinese and U.S. home shoppers.

 一般而言，市场上中国买家越多，中美买家的目标价格水平差距越大（即中国高，美国低）。换言之，在中国买家最多的房产市场，中美买家购房目标价格不在同一水平，基本不存在直接竞争关系。

Figure 3 compares shopping patterns of Chinese and U.S. buyers by price point across metros. The horizontal axis shows the popularity of each market among Chinese shoppers relative to its popularity among U.S. shoppers. Markets that are more popular with Chinese shoppers are toward the right and markets that are less popular among Chinese shoppers are toward the left. The vertical axis shows markets where Chinese shoppers are looking at more expensive homes that U.S. shoppers (top), and where Chinese shoppers are interested in lower priced homes (bottom).

图3中我们按各大城市的价格点，比较了中美两国买家的购房特点。

横轴上，受中国买家青睐的市场偏向右侧，不受青睐的则偏向左侧。

纵轴上，中国买家倾向于购买高价房产的市场偏向顶部，而倾向于低价房产的市场偏向底部。

On average, the target price tier of Chinese home shoppers is highest (and furthest from the target price tier of U.S. home shoppers) in the U.S. markets that are most popular for Chinese home shoppers.

chinese buyers

Methodology

We compared the homes that Chinese and U.S. home shoppers are most interested in on Zillow. For homes listed for sale on Zillow in 2016, we computed a percentile based on list price within each metro and for each month. We then combined these data with the number of visitors to Zillow.com who viewed a particular listing, distinguishing users with an IP address in the United States from users with an IP address in the People’s Republic of China.[1]

Weighting by the distribution of visitors from each country who viewed a particular listing, we are able to compare the median price – and more interestingly, the median price percentile – of for-sale homes viewed by U.S. and Chinese home shoppers. To the extent that listings are reflective of a particular consumer’s target price point, this should provide a strong signal of a home shopper’s intent.

To measure the popularity of a particular market for each home shopper group, we looked at the number of visitors to for-sale homes on Zillow from each country relative to the total number of for-sale listings in a given market. We then scaled and took the ratio of these two values to measure markets where Chinese home shoppers have an outsized or undersized presence relative to U.S. home shoppers.

分析方法

我们对比了中美两国买家在 Zillow 平台上最感兴趣的房产。对于 2016 年 Zillow 平台上的待售房产，我们根据每月各大城市的挂牌价，计算了百分位。然后，我们将这些数据与 Zillow 上查看特定房源的访客数量相结合（根据中美两国的访客 IP 地址来区分用户）。考虑到搜索数据量较大，也为了提高计算效率，我们在进行分析时从 2016 年随机选择了 30 天。

我们按查看特定房源的各国访客分布进行加权，从而比较中美两国买家查看待售房产的平均价及平均价格百分位。某种程度上，查看的房源反映出用户购房的目标价格，可以提供用户的价格倾向。

为衡量各购房群体对特定房产市场的青睐程度，我们将各国查看 Zillow 上待售房产的访客数量与给定市场待售房源总数相比较。然后绘制比例图，并计算两个数值的比率，并以美国购房者为基准，得出中国购房者数量偏多或偏少的房市。

Related:

• How a Stronger U.S. Dollar Affects Foreign Buyers
• The (Non)Impact of Vancouver’s Real Estate Tax on Seattle
• Viewed From Beijing, Even Silicon Valley Housing Looks Affordable

[1] Because of the size of the search data, and to facilitate computing efficiency, we performed the analysis for 30 randomly selected days in 2016.

[1] Because of the size of the search data, and to facilitate computing efficiency, we performed the analysis for 30 randomly selected days in 2016.