TRD‘s Amir Korangy on Chinese investment and development in the US: VIDEO

Chinese developers with U.S. projects have a built-in network of buyers back home, and are increasingly going directly to that buyer pool when marketing their U.S. projects, The Real Deal’s publisher Amir Korangy said during an appearance on CCTV this week.

These developers, including China’s biggest players such as Dalian Wanda Group, are using the U.S. as a way to diversify and get their capital out of China, said Korangy, speaking on the largest state television broadcaster in mainland China.

“They’d rather have U.S. currency and U.S. assets than Chinese currency and Chinese assets,” he said.

And in the face of economic turmoil back home, regular Chinese citizens could very well increase their investments in the U.S., he added, especially given concern that the yuan could further weaken. Chinese buyers are now the largest contingent of foreign property buyers in the U.S. All together, they spent $28.6 billion in the country in the year ending in March, according to the National Association of Realtors.