> The article notes that the properties are seen as a safe place to store money.
But that isn't true. Real estate isn't that safe in the first place, and they are also throwing money away by not renting it. They'd do better in buying a commercial property and renting it out.
There is a phenomena of buying real estate in stable countries as a complicated bank account for wealthy people from unstable countries. It's like buying a pile of gold to them, except a house is harder to steal.
Vancouver is suffering from this with wealthy mainland chinese, leading to the second worst affordability ratio (housing price : average annual income) in the world. You see similar behaviors in condos in china itself.
It has very bad effects for the people who already live there, especially for the young and newly established. Younger people with better opportunities go away once they do the math and the cities eventually suffer brain drain. I would suggest a high long term unoccupied residence tax to avoid the problems of unused property in cities. Hopefully it will prod these people just a little bit to hire property management companies to avoid the tax and rent the places out.
Why do you feel real estate in Manhattan (especially at the locations mentioned) isn't that safe? Some of those places have been premium properties for almost 100 years.
But that isn't true. Real estate isn't that safe in the first place, and they are also throwing money away by not renting it. They'd do better in buying a commercial property and renting it out.