Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, one of the Bay Area’s largest providers of real estate services, announced recently that it has launched a new international marketing program focused on international investors looking to buy high-end homes in the United States.
The initiative will market Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage listings here at home on a global basis through a combination of print and online advertising, targeted direct marketing, and other outreach efforts.
Additionally, the program will leverage Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC’s network of offices and sales associates throughout the Far East to find qualified buyers of local properties.
Homeowners in Asia have become the fastest-growing segment of offshore buyers for U.S. homes, according to recent industry figures. Buyers in China alone now represent 9 percent of the $41 billion spent annually by international buyers, according to the National Association of REALTORS®—nearly double the total just three years ago.
Chinese buyers now trail only Canadians as the top buyers of U.S. properties. India is tied with Mexico for third at 7 percent. For offshore buyers, California remains one of the top locations in the nation, according to NAR’s study.
“For a variety of reasons, buyers in Asia are increasingly looking to the U.S. in general and California and the Bay Area in particular when it comes to real estate investments,” says Anne Treacy Johnson, regional vice president of marketing for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.
Affluent Chinese residents are facing increasing limitations from their government on purchasing real estate as China battles inflation and what the government and many investors fear might be a real estate bubble. Properties in the U.S., even in more expensive Silicon Valley communities, are considered relatively cheap compared to escalating property values in China.
That combination of spiraling real estate prices and growing limitations by the Chinese government are prompting many well-healed citizens to look overseas for places to invest and perhaps relocate. The trend has led to a rapid growth of Asian populations in Bay Area cities, such as Cupertino, where more than half of the residents are Asian, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Given the strong international demand for our properties, it’s critical to reach Asian buyers with a very targeted and strategic marketing program in their home countries,” Johnson says. “Our goal is to put Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage listings in front of the widest possible audience of affluent buyers from Asia, and do it in a sophisticated style that potential buyers in these countries prefer.”
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage will be marketing the properties with extensive advertising in a host of influential global publications, including the Wall Street Journal Asian edition, Unique Homes magazine, Millionaire Asia, and Previews International Homes & Estates.
For more information, visit www.CaliforniaMoves.com.
