Chinese Buyers Grabbing Up American Homes

Between April 2024 and March 2025, Chinese investors snapped up nearly twice as many U.S. homes as they did the previous year, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

The NAR report showed an 83% surge in Chinese residential real estate purchases relative to the same period a year earlier, with spending increasing from $7.5 billion in the year prior to $13.7 billion. Chinese nationals purchased 11,700 U.S. homes, making them the largest group of foreign buyers, followed by 10,900 properties purchased by buyers from Canada, 6,200 from Mexico and 4,700 from India.

The average price of homes bought by Chinese purchasers was $1,168,800, and Chinese buyers “were more likely to pay in all cash than any other buyer group,” Kashif Ansari, co-founder of Juwai IQI, a real estate technology group, told Bloomberg. By contrast, 75% of U.S. households are currently unable to afford the median-priced new home of $459,826, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Thirty-six percent of Chinese buyers purchased properties in California, followed by 9% in New York.

While total Chinese spending on U.S. homes remains below the 2017 peak of $31.7 billion, the rebound underscores how wealthy Chinese investors continue to view the U.S. housing market as a safe haven, according to Ansari. Meanwhile, the Chinese property sector has faced a downturn due to oversupply in recent years, with new home prices falling 4.7% from the previous year in June.

Foreign investment in U.S. real estate is also rising across the board. International buyers spent $56 billion on U.S. homes over the past year, a 33% jump, marking the first year-over-year increase since 2017, according to the NAR report.

In recent years, numerous states have implemented restrictions on foreign nationals’ ability to purchase properties within their state. For instance, Texas passed a law in late June that prohibits those from countries identified as security threats — which include China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — from purchasing agricultural land, commercial or industrial properties, residential properties and land used for mining or water use.

At the federal level, the Trump administration’s Department of Agriculture announced on July 8 that it will look to block Chinese nationals from purchasing American farmland and end departmental “agreements going to people and entities in countries of concern or other foreign adversaries.” Chinese firms and investors owned over 383,000 acres of farmland in the U.S. as of 2021.