The deals go beyond shimmering glass-and-steel towers: Chinese and Hong Kong investors have also become the second-largest foreign buyers of United States homes, after the Canadians.

“They’re just getting started,” said Steve Collins, the international director at Jones Lang LaSalle Capital, a real estate services firm that recently held conferences for potential buyers in Shanghai and Beijing. “There’s just been some incredible wealth creation there.”

For the moment, the Chinese government is encouraging the investments and even helping to finance them. The state-owned Bank of China has become the largest foreign lender in commercial real estate deals in the United States, replacing big European banks. Beijing is eager to diversify its investments. The Chinese government owns more than $1 trillion of United States Treasury securities, but those investments generate little return given how low interest rates are.

“The political support for investments beyond U.S. Treasuries has increased significantly over the last couple of years and that has encouraged Chinese investors to look at real estate in big, stable markets like New York or other big cities,” said Thilo Hanemann, a research director the Rhodium Group, a firm that analyzes global business and economic trends.