Entrepreneur offers US$250,000 tours for super-rich Chinese seeking US property

Entrepreneurs create new industry catering to the needs of China's wealthy home-hunters

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An agent who specializes in buying houses for Chinese investors, checks her listings while touring homes for sale in California.

Published: 3:45am, 17 Mar 2015Updated: 2:43pm, 8 Apr 2015

Just how confident is Los Angeles property broker Erik Coffin that he can interest Chinese clients in high-end Las Vegas villas? He's charging a total of US$4 million a month for a quick glimpse.

It isn't just any tour. The marketing push is set to start next month for these twice-monthly journeys that cost US$250,000 a pop for a seven-day, private jet and Rolls Royce-chauffeured trip to the American heartland. Eight-person groups will also be offered consultations on plastic surgery, picking the sex of a child and wealth management.

"It's already a win for us," said Coffin, 42, who employs 18 Putonghua speakers, almost a third of his staff, at Gotham Corporate Group, which recently opened an office in Beijing.

Wealthy Chinese have been stocking up on overseas real estate for at least the past five years, according to SouFun Holdings, China's biggest real estate website. Now, entrepreneurs such as Coffin are banking on that demand to create an entirely new industry to cater to their needs - everything from websites and brokers to developers, lawyers and international marketers.

Andrew Taylor, who helps run Juwai.com a four-year-old Shanghai-based real estate platform catering to Chinese clients seeking homes overseas, said: "Chinese consumers used to come to us and say, 'Where can I buy with US$500,000?' Now they are looking at three or four countries at the same time."

Juwai, which means "Live Abroad", says it has more than 4.8 million property listings in 58 nations. There's no shortage of clients: 60 per cent of China's wealthiest are contemplating a move, the site says.

In Beijing, a marketing campaign sponsored by SouFun touts a 12-day "Gold-Digging US tour". The Chinese capital was also host last weekend to a three-day foreign property and immigration exhibition, the second of its kind in four months. Among destinations on offer: Portugal ("get a residence permit for the whole family"); Japan ("pass on your ownership for generations"); and the US (again, "invest by one person, get a green card for the whole family").