A small group of wealthy Chinese investors recently poured $10 million into a luxury condominium project in New York’s Westchester County. The redbrick building, set to open next year, will feature a pool and a roof deck offering sweeping views of the Hudson River.

None of the people bothered to visit the site before plunking down their money.

“It was a relatively easy deal,” said Rick Singer, a New York real-estate investor who introduced the Chinese investors to the project’s developer. “It gave the Chinese what they wanted.”

The investors’ objective, in part, was to move money out of China and into U.S. commercial property, said brokers who have arranged similar deals for wealthy Chinese in recent years.

That goal became more pressing over the summer, after a plunging stock market rattled investors and a sharply slowing economy prompted Chinese officials to devalue the nation’s currency. Authorities beefed up enforcement of rules designed to keep money from exiting the country. Many wealthy Chinese worry that Beijing could strip them of their wealth or inflate away their savings by cheapening the currency further, brokers said. That motivates them to move large sums outside the country, ideally without drawing attention.