Chinese gear up to buy U.S. homes

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

BEIJING, Feb. 1 (Chinese media) -- Attracted by the real

estate plunge on the other side of the globe, Chinese homebuyers are gearing up

for visits to the United States in February to buy cheap homes, the English

language newspaper China Daily reported in its weekend issue.

A pioneering house-buying team of 20 to 30 people,

organized by Soufun.com, one of the largest real estate portals in China, is

scheduled to leave for the United States on Feb. 12, according to an article on

Soufun.com.

It is said more than 300 Chinese have registered so

far on the website for a 10-day house-buying trip.

The U.S. mortgage crisis and the downturn in the

global economy have presented people with a golden opportunity, said Liu Jian,

an official of the Beijing-based real estate portal.

The trip, which costs up to 25,000 yuan (3,500 U.S.

dollars) per person, will focus on cities with huge ethnic Chinese populations

including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, Liu said.

The prices of houses targeted by Chinese buyers are

between 3 million to 5 million yuan (400,000 to 700,000 U.S. dollars), he said.

The applicants include real estate professionals who

want to investigate in the U.S. real estate market, and parents who want to buy

houses for their children studying or to study in the United States.