Realtors Yang and Traci Clinton are co-listing this house in Manhasset for $3,998,000. The 7,000-square-foot house has five bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The gold coast

In a Feb 6, 2015 New York Times story headlined: The Lure of the Gold Coast Wealthy Chinese Buyers Head to New York’s Suburbs, the newspaper said: “Some Chinese buyers are parking money in what they see as a low-risk investment. Others are seeking a trophy home. Still others are intent on living in these places full time while their children attend the area’s high-performing schools.”

“For Chinese buyers it’s all about education and great schools,” said Maria Barbaev, an associate real estate broker with Douglas Elliman’s Sports & Entertainment Division in Roslyn, New York. The village in Nassau County on Long Island’s North Shore has a population of 2,770 and is a short train ride to Manhattan.

“Perhaps the change now is to look in suburbs. These are no longer just investment purchases where they’re moving money out of their country. I see more and more purchases done for family living,” she said in an interview.

In the last two years, Barbaev said that she has taken part in 15 to 20 home sales with Chinese clients at prices as high as $20 million.

Three miles west, in Manhasset, real estate saleswoman Edith Yang said “Chinese people have been coming like crazy” to the village of about 8,000.

“For New York City, I have a lot of people seeing it as an investment,” said Yang, also with Douglas Elliman’s Sports & Entertainment Division. “You will have a small crowd that wants to buy something very fancy and use it as a trophy property that they like to brag about. On Long Island, you will find the majority of people buying are looking to move here.”

She said most of her clients are looking for the same “key ingredients”: good schools, nice neighborhoods and easy access to the city.

“For Chinese people, especially the very rich ones, the target is to get their kids into the Ivy League,” she said. “They know we have a lot of good schools on the East Coast and a lot of good prep schools. So what they’re trying to do is bring the kids here when they are younger, and they can get the required education to continue on the path to the Ivy League.”