Best if that house is "worth" $1.5 million. You can borrow a lot more against that than against a $400k L.A. bungalow.
Your understanding of LA-area real-estate -- and its appeal to Chinese buyers -- appears to be...incomplete:
"Wealthy Chinese home buyers boost suburban L.A. housing markets" [1]
"Housing crisis hasn't touched San Marino" [2]
In San Marino -- a former WASP bastion, now about 50% Chinese -- $2 - $10 million homes are readily found [3].
(And there are other, cheaper cities with large Chinese populations close by, so one can pick one's price-point).
In the city itself, in or near West LA for example, the market has been hot for a while -- it's not hard to find areas with median house prices over $1 million (e.g. [4]) -- a $1.5 million house would not be hard to find.
Or, for (much) more expensive places, one could go to Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Rolling Hills, Malibu, etc. [5].
So, your putative fugitive would have little problem finding an expensive house -- for most of values of "expensive" -- in the greater LA area, either in a Chinese enclave or, if they needed to stay away from people who might recognize them, etc., in other nice areas.
Your understanding of LA-area real-estate -- and its appeal to Chinese buyers -- appears to be...incomplete:
"Wealthy Chinese home buyers boost suburban L.A. housing markets" [1]
"Housing crisis hasn't touched San Marino" [2]
In San Marino -- a former WASP bastion, now about 50% Chinese -- $2 - $10 million homes are readily found [3]. (And there are other, cheaper cities with large Chinese populations close by, so one can pick one's price-point).
In the city itself, in or near West LA for example, the market has been hot for a while -- it's not hard to find areas with median house prices over $1 million (e.g. [4]) -- a $1.5 million house would not be hard to find.
Or, for (much) more expensive places, one could go to Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Rolling Hills, Malibu, etc. [5].
So, your putative fugitive would have little problem finding an expensive house -- for most of values of "expensive" -- in the greater LA area, either in a Chinese enclave or, if they needed to stay away from people who might recognize them, etc., in other nice areas.
[1] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-chinese-homebuyers-201...
[2] http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/31/business/la-fi-san-m...
[3] http://www.zillow.com/san-marino-ca/expensive-homes/
[4] http://www.zillow.com/mid-city-west-los-angeles-ca/home-valu...
[5] http://la.curbed.com/archives/2012/10/10_pricey_houses_in_so...