The language and process of money doesn't phase me at all--it's more the basic things I'm worried about, like making sure the trash gets picked up, heh.I'm registering here so I can kind of wallow in the culture a bit before I make the leap.

the 2nd association it resonates is the highly consumption-driven society we live in. in my area (coastal, urban southern california) i'm surrounded by 2 distinct lifestyles. there's the majority: seems like 95% of the local population who are renters, driving luxury cars, sporting fancy clothes, jewelry, hairdos, etc but obviously living paycheck to paycheck as exemplified by hardly a day somebody or the other is spotted  getting their car repo'ed by a camera crew. the rarer are the landlords, who in this area seem to be of mostly asian demographics (chinese, koreans, japanese) who live obviously very frugally: old 80s model sedan, oldfashion business cloths, always eating simple meal from home, seemingly never splurging $$$ other than into expanding their portfolio), my observance is relatively very few landlords in the area own relatively huge portfolios, each.with the advent of these infomercials and the internet (ie, BP) more and more people want to get a 'piece of the REI pie' and more power to them. there does seem to be this dream of rags to riches and while its ok to dream, do most people actually expect their life to turn around like that, as portrayed in most of the infomercials or even in the everyday setting where the masses living paycheck to paycheck, are spending their last expendable dollars not on depositing into savings acount, but blowing $20 on scratchies etc. in summary, is my observation reminds me of my days when i worked on wall st and the 'ra trace' was so obvious with dime a dozen stock brokers makin 6fig salaries at some point but blowing it on recreational drugs apparently costing thousands of dollars a pop to the point the next week they are broke again and that $ wasnt invested but wasted.  

I was born there and while my parents left with me when I was a kid, my mom is there now and I've visited and been present in the culture enough to know where we want to live and what our criteria are.

I think it's great to talk about it IF your work culture allows it.

Obviously you can get away with having a desirable cultural draw, or a great employment draw, but both is better.

If it's in a hot neighborhood in NY or CA with Chinese investment pouring in as they flee their home economy, a 6% cap rate ($2.7M!) 

This is something that may reduce the enthusiasm of going to work for a company that does not include these types of incentives in their culture.

The Chinese have been increasing consumers of US products each year, so if the Chinese are doing poorly, they are purchasing less American products and this affects our stock market. 

I will admit i see a lot of potential and I love the culture and climate of the region.I have found that this site has a plethora of information and I plan on utilizing all of the available resources to pursue my real estate aspirations.Thanks, Robert

It isn't about management style or culture, it's about which elements of the supply and production chain are under one roof.