Can someone point me to statistics about this phenomenon? It sounds true that foreign investors use US housing as an investment and inflate prices, but I have no idea how large this effect is.
People import luxury cars from China and are able to drive them with Chinese plates in Washington State?
This I would not have guessed!
So it mostly comes down to relative wealth & population sizes versus desirability of an area, and then spillover effects into surrounding areas. But unless China crashes I would expect this to be an increasing source of demand over time, especially if you live in a pro-immigration country that needs to paper over domestic government budget shortfalls.