China Buys Up Property in America's Hottest Housing Market

Newsweek

3 days ago

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
The New Hampshire city at the center of a recent controversy surrounding a Chinese company's local real estate purchase, Nashua, has been named the hottest housing market in the country.
The metropolitan area of Manchester-Nashua, which includes the two New Hampshire cities, offers the best combination of good quality of life and projected home appreciation in the nation, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal and Realtor.com.
Why These Markets Are So Hot
Manchester and Nashua are comfortably close to Boston, offering residents an easy commute to the big city if needed and much lower home prices compared to their big urban neighbor.
But that is only one of the reasons these cities are so sought after by homebuyers, to the point that they are willing to face fierce competition on the market. Manchester and Nashua have a very stable economic profile, which means that an expensive home would still be a good investment even a few years down the line. They have excellent schools, jobs are plentiful in many sectors, and there are a lot of outdoor activities for summer and winter.
These factors are enough to make sure that buyers are not completely thrown off by ever-rising home prices.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Canva
In June, the latest data available on Realtor.com, the median listing home price in Nasha was $525,000, up 8.3 percent from a year earlier. In Manchester, it was $428,400, up 7.1 percent year-over-year.
While the rest of the country is slowly shifting in favor of buyers, with Florida and Texas already solidly into this territory, Manchester and Nashua remain strong sellers' markets. In Nashua, homes sold for 1.52 percent above asking price, on average, last month. In Manchester, they sold for 2.27 percent above asking price.
Why You Might Have Heard of Nashua
While Nashua is the second-largest city in northern New England, it is not often that it makes headlines in national media. Yet the city has recently been under the spotlight for a deal involving a billionaire Chinese businessman and his company, which quietly bought a commercial building in Nashua near the Pennichuck Water Works system.
Nongfu Spring, China's largest beverage company, bought a 23-acre parcel in Nashua for $67 million, next to the New Hampshire watershed area that supplies drinking water to the city. Pennichuck said that it will supply water to the Chinese development as well.
The main street bridge over the Nashua River in Nashua, New Hampshire. Inset: Zhong Shanshan, chairman of Nongfu Spring mineral water, in May 2013.
The main street bridge over the Nashua River in Nashua, New Hampshire. Inset: Zhong Shanshan, chairman of Nongfu Spring mineral water, in May 2013.
Getty Images
The sale has raised questions over national security and the future of Nashua's water resources, as the Chinese company sets up operations in the city. According to LinkedIn posts, Nongfu Springs has been hiring for positions in Nashua in the past few months.
The company, set up in the 1990s in China, has helped make owner Zhong Shanshan the richest man in the country, with a net worth of about $65 billion. While Zhong has recently come under fire in China for not being loyal enough to his country after criticizing Beijing for failing to control pricing on online platforms, New Hampshire lawmakers worry that his new Nashua plant stands too close to sensitive military locations in the state.
"We always need to be extra careful about all potential sales of critical infrastructure such as our water supply. There has been a lot of concern throughout the Nashua community that this sale is being rushed through without proper scrutiny being paid to the buyer," Republican state Senator Kevin Avard, a vocal critic of the deal, told Newsweek.
"I fully understand that sentiment and have been vocal about slowing down the process to make sure that we aren't putting the safety of our community needlessly in jeopardy. These concerns were so strong and so loud that Nongfu was forced to modify its original plan to purchase the water rights and focus solely on the water bottling plant," he said.
For Avard, "it is an undisputed fact that there are agents of the Chinese Communist government attempting to commit acts of espionage throughout our nation."
"We even had spokesmen for the military testify in front of the Senate this year about the potential threats to the Space Force base just down the road in New Boston. This is something we need to take seriously, and when a large multinational company Nongfu attempts to make such a major purchase in our state, we need to make sure that we have all of the facts," he added.
This year, the New Hampshire legislature passed a provision in HB 2—then signed by Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte—that prohibits agents of hostile foreign nations such as Iran, China and Syria from purchasing land in New Hampshire.
"Unfortunately, this bill was not in effect in time for this sale. I do believe that much can, and should, be done in the upcoming year to bring more transparency to the influence that hostile nations, like China, have in our state," Avard said.
In a statement issued on Friday, Nashua Mayor James Donchess said that the city was "neither involved in nor informed of the sales and acquisitions of any private properties in the city, and it has no input on the purchase prices of any private properties.
"The City of Nashua only became aware of this potential project when Nongfu Spring submitted a construction permit application, which they withdrew at the end of May."