Sure, employees from the tech companies in Silicon Valley drive up demand for housing in that area. But, as you can see in the video, there are a lot of foreign cash buyers scrambling for houses in the area too. Buyers from Mainland China seem to be singled out by the video to be the only foreign cash buyers who buy up Silicon Valley. But there are actually lots of cash buyers from India, the Arab world, Europe etc, etc, who are buying houses, not just in Silicon Valley, but in all major cities all over America. America doesn't produce much to export or trade with other countries. But America's land and natural resources are up for sale, and they seem to be the only American-made products that sell well internationally.
Many employees in the Silicon Valley actually have to live outside of the area because despite their higher than average American paychecks, they can't afford to live in the area. They are priced out too, as a result of the bubble demand for housing in the area. The bubble demand is shown by empty unoccupied houses owned by investors (foreign and domestic). If only the people of California can lobby a law to limit the number of unoccupied houses a foreign investor can own, there will be a tremendous ease of housing supply in the market and people will see a drop in rent because owners of those unoccupied houses will have to rent them out fast, or sell them to the local homeowner occupants fast.
But will this kind of law gain support in the State of California? Not really because lots of home owners in California love to see the price of their homes shot up by investors speculation. A law that bans or limits foreign non-resident investors from owning unoccupied houses or land, will be a very unpopular ballot among existing California homeowners.
To reduce real estate speculation caused by bubble foreign demand without creating a law to ban foreign investment in America's residential real estate, America can start telling the truth to the ignorant Chinese cash buyers, "You don't really own anything here in this country. The houses you are buying are paper thin like the props in your high school plays. The land underneath the prop is owned by the State government and you are only leasing it perpetually by paying annually adjusted property taxes (for example, $5,000 for a property that is purchased at $385,000, triple that annually if you are buying a shed at $1 million. ) Meanwhile, there is no property taxes in China if you are holding (leasing) a property in China. Yes, the land lease in China is 70 years, but you are also leasing here in the USA with a perpetual land lease that costs you a lot more in annual property taxes (lease payment), than the zero property tax you pay in China. In China, you don't own the land but you can definitely renew the lease with the government when it is due to expire.
As for investors in other countries, I am sure if only they are told the truth about the annual property taxes in America, they will not be so eager to sink their cash into the real estate market here. So until the truth is told, or until a law is passed to limit foreign investment, ignorant foreign investors will continue to sheepishly pay big bucks for an asbestos coated shed in the U.S. They naively think they own the land, but they really don't.
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