Asian investment, including billions of dollars from China, is changing the skyline of downtown Los Angeles. Direct investors have begun to diversify away from low-risk properties and into sectors such as retail and development projects, expanding their search outside gateway cities.

Industry insiders discussed the trend in the booming Southern California real estate market at a panel discussion at the SELECT LA Investment Summit, an international trade event on June 17 in Los Angeles that drew some 250 participants from 30 countries and regions.

The face of Los Angeles has changed dramatically in recent years, , a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said in her keynote remarks.

Chinese investment in American real estate accounted for 7 percent of the foreign total in 2015, a number that many industry observers, such as Todd Tydlaska, executive vice-president at commercial real estate company CBRE, and Bill Allen, CEO of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC), consider an underestimate.

It's difficult to capture Southern California real estate transactions by private companies and individuals from China, which might cause a misinterpretation of Chinese direct investment performance and market penetration, said Christine Cooper, senior vice-president of the Institute for Applied Economics, affiliated with LAEDC.

According to a survey by CBRE, 28 percent of global investors choose multifamily/ residential as their preferred property sector, followed by office (24 percent), industrials/logistics (23 percent) and retail (17 percent).

Global investors are advised to widen their property searches to new areas, seeking lower-priced properties with higher returns, said Tydlaska, adding that inland America and Midwestern states are seeing a growth in foreign investment.

Los Angeles, however, remains a preferred destination for foreign investment, especially for China investors.

Since 2014, Chinese developers such as Shanghai-based Greenland, Beijing-based Oceanwide and Shenzhen Hazens have made headlines with their multi-tower mega development in downtown Los Angeles.

Greenland USA is constructing the first and second phases of its $1 billion, 2.1 million-square-foot Metropolis mega project in the South Park area of LA. The first phase, which includes the 18-story, 350-room Hotel Indigo and a 38-story condo tower, is scheduled to be completed this year.

Oceanwide in March broke ground on its $1 billion, 752,000-square-foot Oceanwide Plaza. The project has one 49-story tower and two 40-story towers with 504 condominiums and 183 hotel rooms.

In 2014, Hazens spent $105 million to acquire the Luxe City Center hotel at Figueroa Street and Olympic Boulevard to construct three high-rises. The first phase of the project would create a 30-story hotel with 250 rooms and a 30-story condominium tower. The second phase would demolish the old hotel and raise a 42-condominium tower with 650 condos and 80,000 square feet of retail space on two floors.

junechang@chinadailyusa.com