Seattle is becoming the top choice for Chinese buyers for home property investment, driving prices higher.

According to Juwai.com, Chinese buyers are fleeing Vancouver and settling for Seattle after the government implemented a 15 percent Metro Vancouver offshore investor tax. Vancouver's buying inquiries dropped by 81 percent in August, while Seattle's jumped by 143 percent last month compared with the same period last year.

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"The shift to other cities has actually been going on for months, with buyer demand momentum shifting to other cities with similar appeal but lower entry prices," Dave Platter from Juwai.com said. "Right now, Seattle is the No. 1 city in North America for Chinese buyer inquiries, even displacing Los Angeles."

The figure was also confirmed by Metro Vancouver MLS, with home sales even worse this month. "The sales are on pace for historic lows for the past 10 years," Steve Saretsky, a realtor from Vancouver, said.

Education (accounting for two-thirds of the Chinese buyers), lifestyle and travel opportunities (24 percent), and investment potential (16 percent) are the top three reasons why Chinese buyers opt for Seattle, Matthew Moore, Juwai's president of the Americas, revealed.

Furthermore, the increase of non-stop flights between Seattle and China has also been evident. Aside from the absence of income tax, Seattle's access to clean air and water and local establishments hiring Chinese-speaking workers has also made the city attractive to Chinese investors.

However, some real estate brokers and buyers have expressed concern that Seattle may soon follow Vancouver's footsteps as international buyers helped price out longtime residents and sometimes left their homes empty, thus decreasing housing stocks and pulling prices up to over 30 percent annually, according to Seattle Times.

TagsSeattle, Vancouver, investment, property investment, home buyers, real estate