WASHINGTON (TND) — A Chinese billionaire is now the second biggest foreign owner of U.S. land, owning 198,000 acres of timberland in Oregon.
The billionaire, Chen Tianqiao, is the founder of an online gaming company.
According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, foreign investors and companies own over 40 million acres of U.S. agricultural land, which is about 1.8% of all land in the U.S. and 3.1% of all privately held agricultural land.
While this does not sound like much, foreign investors are purchasing more land than they used to. In fact, between 2010 and 2021, foreign-owned agricultural land increased by 15.8 million acres.
Canadian investors own the most land – 31% -- followed by the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany.
China ranks 18th on the list, owning 0.3% of U.S. agricultural land.
Almost half of states have restrictions on foreign ownership, like prohibiting certain groups or countries from buying land.
The Senate tried to pass a federal measure to ban countries like Russia, China, North Korea and Iran from buying farmland beyond a certain acreage, but it was never signed into law.
Agricultural land is not the only thing foreign buyers are interested in.
According to a report from the National Association of Realtors, international buyers snatched up $53.3 billion worth of residential properties from April 2022 to March 2023.
That seems like a lot, but the number is down 9.6% from the previous year.
During this period 84,600 homes were sold, which is a 14.2% decrease from the previous year and marks the lowest number since 2009. That number also only accounts for 1.8% of the 4.73 million existing home sales here in the U.S.
Thirteen percent of the foreign buyers were from China, followed by Mexico (11%), Canada (10%), India (7%) and Colombia (3%).
The top destinations for foreign buyer purchases were Florida (23%), California (12%), Texas (12%), North Carolina (4%) and Arizona (4%).
Restrictions on foreign real estate purchases vary by state.
Florida recently enacted a law that limits some foreign buyers – China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria and Venezuela – from owning property in the state.
Thirteen other states passed similar laws in 2023.
While around half of states ban or limit foreign ownership of farmland, at least six of the states that passed laws recently – Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Tennessee and Utah – expand that to all property.
