Year of the Pig 2007 augurs good Real Estate Investment

According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, it's the Year of the Pig, and Bloomberg News reports the geomancers are saying it's a good year to invest in real estate. Fortune telling is big in Asia... more than half of 1,407 South Koreans surveyed by e-mail by an online career service said they had consulted an astrologer for Lunar New Year or planned to do so. Feng shui, the ancient Asian practice of arranging physical space to harmonize with the environment is well regarded in real estate practice, and it factors in the auspicious lunar calendar influence.

San Francisco is 31 percent Asian, probably owning the highest Asian density of the major stateside U.S. cities, and good feng shui may be a significant influence on the market this year. At Transparent Real Estate today, I write about how real estate investors worldwide are beginnning to accept the concept of buying foreign properties, often sight unseen, and speculate that demand from foreign investors buying US real estate, particularly in trophy cities like San Francisco, should be considered in demand forecasts. I also envision brokerages establishing divisions in Seoul and Shanghai to sell overseas investment properties (in San Francisco, the new SOMA high rises are perfect investments for Asians who have an affinity for these types of properties) to their locals.

--Pat Kitano, Transparent Real Estate

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