\n\nFor whatever reason, first-generation Chinese immigrants love investing in real estate. \u00a0Where their kids would plow their savings into stocks and bonds and bitcoin, mom and dad would much prefer to own a few rental properties. \u00a0It\u2019s never quite been explained to me why. \u00a0Maybe there\u2019s an ingrained preference for the world of atoms over the world of bits. \u00a0Maybe coming from a background where securities regulations are considerably more, uh, pliable, real estate feels more reliable and less subject to back-room wheeling and dealing.
\nWhatever the reason though, there\u2019s definitely something ironic about a bunch of people who fled from Communists denouncing them as landlords, now turning around and rushing to prove the Communists\u2019 point.
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Asian immigrant businessmen in Portland seem weirdly aggressive at property development. By which I mean stuff like my area is building out, but there are these two buildings that don\u2019t make sense, on irregular lots diagonal to a median-divided street in an area with no foot traffic, built two stories to the lot lines, and it\u2019s like \u201cno way this should happen until better locations are infilled more\u201d.\n
\nI dunno, I can think of two things that might contribute\n
\nOne, if you\u2019re targeting an ethnic/linguistic market \u2013 and judging by the tenants and signs so far they are \u2013 I guess the particulars of the location don\u2019t matter enough that the cheaper location is worth it \u2013 if people want insurance services in Cantonese or specialty foods they\u2019ll take the 5 minutes to park, etc.\n
\nTwo, a foreign sensibility of what cities are like? Like, \u201cdense retail in odd lot\u201d is par for Hong Kong, or Saigon, or\u2026 and I can\u2019t tell if that sensibility works better or not? Maybe the location will be an unexpected drain, maybe the builder (and his funders, and their tenants, and and their insurers, all from the same community) realizes that accessibility by semi or panel truck is overrated in a city of enough density to deliver by those eurovans.\n
\nDunno
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