Interesting posts - these investors are now the market of buyers for vacant lots in that area - it would be interesting to see what was on the sites BEFORE they were fire-damaged and razed for vacant. From photos that I have seen of the areas, there were a number of funky, interesting older homes - perhaps long-time family homes bought at lower prices 30-plus years ago. The area, when rebuilt with the investor money, likely will be boring, ugly huge new houses or rezoned to townhouses if they can get it passed. The folks who sold the lots were not all Chinese I assume, so one might think a select group of RE agents and buyers contacted the prior owners to purchase the lots.
I disagree with the poster who said developers only go after the $ . Some might operate that way, but others very much want a local region for various reasons. Investors and companies are still comprised of people. People use money to buy things for "feelz" reasons, much as some of you guys dislike that reality. Even professional investors are driven by motives other than strictly return on the $. It might be national pride, or a beautiful area they themselves want to live in one day, or have bragging rights to. It might be strategic - a long game plan -if they control a swathe of an area, they can buy and sell back and forth to each other at prices the open market would never support. It could be a strategy involving money laundering, or tax shelters, getting $ outside of an unstable region, etc.
