Yes, I know this is old news from the summer of 2017 but it’s related to some other recent posts and perhaps not so old for some of you with an interest in these issues and trends.  It’s also related to one of my favorite topics, young Vietnamese studying in the USA. 

According to the 2017 Profile of International Activity in U.S. Residential Real Estate (PDF download), compiled by the National Association of (US) Realtors (NAR), Viet Nam ranked 9th in 2016-17, to be precise, after Germany with Japan rounding out the top 10.  Between April 2016 and March 2017, Vietnamese purchased about 5,689 residential properties in the US, double the number of transactions in the previous year. 

The total amount was an estimated $3 billion out of $153 billion worth of US residential property acquired by foreign investors during the same period.  (Non-resident foreign
buyers purchased $78.1 billion of property, while resident foreign buyers purchased $74.9 billion worth.)  Not surprisingly, based on where most Vietnamese-Americans live and other reasons, Vietnamese investors preferred California, Florida, and Texas. 

Reasons include the following:

• one of the fastest-growing economies in the world
• the fastest-growing percentage of ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the world between now and 2026, according to the The Wealth Report 2017 by Knight Frank
• the Vietnamese tendency to hedge their bets in the face of perceived or actual instability
• the high number of Vietnamese young people studying in the US and the desire of many parents of means to buy a place for them to stay and as an investment
  
• the relatively high number of EB-5 cases (related to the above)

MAA