Asian investors head for ny

Indian and Chinese property investors are increasingly buying real estate in New York as the number of buyers from Europe drops off, according to brokers - Indians now account for close to 20% of all real estate sales in Manhattan and 30% of all enquiries made, according to Raphael De Niro, managing director of New York's biggest property broking firm Prudential Douglas Elliman...
 
‘India and China are now replacing the buyers from Eastern Europe.

There are a number of Chinese and other Asians too,' he confirmed and said they have been attracted by bargain prices as those for residential apartments in Manhattan have fallen by 20 to 25% from the market's peak at the end of 2007.

Currently an apartment in Manhattan can be cheaper than a similar piece of property in sought after areas of Mumbai.

According to realty firm Brown Harris Stevens a luxury condo in Manhattan can be bought for $1.65 to $3.93 million, while a similar apartment in Mumbai could cost $3.3 to $6 million.

‘New York is now becoming what London was about 15 years ago,' said Jaswant Lalwani, associate broker at real estate firm Corcoran Group.

He says the new enquiries for Manhattan condos mostly come from businessmen from the small and medium sized segment, since most of the top league entrepreneurs already own property in New York.
 
Bollywood stars and top notch businessmen are among those looking for property in the US and they are looking for high-end Central Park condominiums, according to De Niro.

According to Lalwani even if the property market falls by a further few percentage points in the near future, those buying now  in New York aiming to keep the property for five to 10 years are still likely to see a considerable return on their investment.

He has had 20 serious enquiries from India in the last three months, half of which have resulted in sales.

'The remaining buyers are in varying degrees of decision making. Indians are looking for value, location and resale potential.

There are a lot many more enquiries but many of them are just doing homework,' he explained.

 According to the third quarter 2009 Manhattan Market Overview from Prudential Douglas Elliman all price indicators showed double digit decline when compared with the previous quarter.

The median sales price of a Manhattan condo was $1,015,124, down 16.8% from $1,220,000 in the same quarter last year, but was up 1.6% from the last quarter price of $999,000.

This indicates that prices are bottoming out.

Source: www.propertywire.com