Thursday, August 07, 2008

The Dutch Are Coming, the Dutch Are Coming [Updated]

It appears that foreign investors have bought up 5+ million acres in the last year. That's what the latest AFIDA report shows. Don't know where they were bought, but if the average is 1K per, that's 5 billion dollars. Could be lots more.

Maine and Hawaii have the highest concentration of foreign ownership, and one Netherlands corporation has over 3 million acres. (Do the Dutch still remember the "purchase" of Manhattan fondly, as an example of the values to be found here? Or maybe they figure global warming is going to doom Holland?)

It's a repeat of the 1970's, when the weak dollar meant lots of foreign investment, and the passage of the AFIDA (reports available here).

[Update: Most holdings are forest land and the changes are in forest land. Canadian paper companies.]

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