Posted on 07/18/2017 1:14:58 PM PDT by johnk
Foreigners snap up record number of US homes Foreign buyers closed on $153 billion worth of U.S. residential properties for the 12 months ended in March.
That marks a 49 percent jump from 2015-2016, according to the National Association of Realtors. Florida, Texas and California drew the most international buyers.
Diana Olick | @DianaOlick 6 Hours Ago CNBC.com
Foreigners snap up record number of US homes Foreigners snap up record number of US homes 3 Hours Ago | 00:57
Foreign purchases of U.S. residential real estate surged to the highest level ever in terms of number of homes sold and dollar volume.
Foreign buyers closed on $153 billion worth of U.S. residential properties between April 2016 and March 2017, a 49 percent jump from the period a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors. That surpasses the previous high, set in 2015.
The jump follows a year-earlier retreat and comes as a surprise, given the current strength of the U.S. dollar against most foreign currencies, which makes U.S. housing even more expensive. Apparently, the value of a financial safe-haven is outweighing the rising costs.
Foreign sales accounted for 10 percent of all existing home sales by dollar volume and 5 percent by number of properties. In total, foreign buyers purchased 284,455 homes, up 32 percent from the previous year. Half of all foreign sales were in just three states: Florida, California and Texas.
Chinese buyers led the pack for the fourth straight year, followed by buyers from Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico and India. Russian buyers made up barely 1 percent of the purchases.
But the biggest overall surge in sales in the last year came from Canadian buyers, who scooped up $19 billion worth of properties, mostly in Florida. They are also spending more, with the average price of a Canadian-bought home nearly doubling to $561,000. "There are more [baby] boomers now than ever before.
It's the demographic," said Elli Davis, a real estate agent in Toronto who said she is seeing more older buyers downsize their primary home and purchase a second or third home in Florida. "The real estate here is worth so much more money. They all have more money. They're selling the big city houses that are now $2 million-plus, where they went up so much in the last 10 to 15 years, so they're cashing in."
Despite the anti-immigrant rhetoric from the Trump administration, especially about building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, nonresident buyers from Mexico were undeterred. Mexican buyers nearly doubled their purchases by dollar volume from a year earlier, coming in third behind China and Canada.
"You could easily make the point that perhaps their uptick was wanting to buy now before new immigration policy was in place," said Adam DeSanctis, economic issues media manager at the National Association of Realtors.
In general, though, Mexicans have been buying less expensive homes. The average purchase price of buyers from Mexico came in at about $327,000, compared with the $782,000 average among Chinese buyers and $522,000 for Indian buyers. Mexicans overwhelmingly favored homes in Texas, while Chinese buyers opted more for California and, increasingly, Texas.
"The environment is much more Asian-friendly than it used to be with churches, grocery stores and schools that cater to their tastes," said Laura Barnett, a Dallas-Fort Worth area Re/Max agent. "I have been told they target good schools and newer homes. Yards are not a high priority, but rather community parks." It's also possible that Chinese buyers are being priced out of California. The average price of a home purchased by a buyer from China fell from about $937,000 to $782,000, even as the number of properties purchased jumped to nearly 41,000 from 29,000. The drop in purchasing power likely stems from tightened regulations in China with regards to capital outflow. While international interest was quite strong in the second half of last year, it may now be weakening due to tighter regulations in China and weakening currencies in some international markets.
"Stricter foreign government regulations and the current uncertainty on policy surrounding U.S. immigration and international trade policy could very well lead to a slowdown in foreign investment," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR.
How can we just hand over BILLIONS in property to people who mostly have DONE NOTHING to earn it.
Meanwhile to the taxpayers can't by groceries week to week.
What happens when your government flushes your country down the toilet for their own personal gain.
Selling realty to foreigners, is a liberal’s dream of allowing the foreigners a toe-hold on the country.
They consider it a “soft invasion”.
We aren’t exactly “handing over” property. For all these foreign buyers, there are American sellers who are making profits off of the sale of their homes.
Willing sellers, American sellers, are pocketing the profits.
I guess people selling homes could refuse to sell to a foreign buyer. But if you could get more money from a foreign buyer, do you really care where their money comes from??? That’s a key issue, in my opinion. They wouldn’t be able to buy American houses if willing sellers didn’t sell.
Go to Mexico as an American and try to buy property. See how that works out for you.
I thought reciprocity was a basic principle of diplomacy?
*Yawn*
And the Japanese were doing the same thing in the 80’s. How did that work out for them?
http://www.businessinsider.com/japans-eighties-america-buying-spree-2013-1
exactly
Giving away our country for a buck.
It’s another bubble.
They're implying immigrants...not so...
Money laundering is illegal, except in real estate where it’s perfectly legal (courtesy of the R/E lobby). Turning drug money, extorted money, etc into R/E is a classic means of creating clean assets from dirty sources. That’s why the bulk of foreign buyers are Mexican, Chinese, or Russian.
Here in S Florida Canadians save a lot of communities when they bought up condos. Now with the fall..and still falling Canadian dollar they are not buying. With mexicans I’d bet a lot is money laundering
I have, over the last five years, bought eight homes. Granted I am buying distressed property at the bottom layer of the market. But houses in general are a buyer’s market. Prices are great. Availability is good.
The fact that people in foreign countries are buying is wonderful for sellers who would otherwise face dismal prospects. The Chinese are investing in property at record rates, not because they want to live here, but because they need to shelter their money from the communists. Since they aren’t citizens, they won’t be voting, so it’s not as if America is losing sovereignty. This is a worldwide vote of confidence that America’s economy is improving and these houses will therefore prove to be a good investment.
MAGA indeed!
You are100% correct
So just "who" is handing over property to those who have done nothing to earn it?
The average price of a home purchased by a buyer from China fell from about $937,000 to $782,000,
Sounds to me like they CAN afford it.........
And for the record dude, Asians have the highest rate of business and community assimilation than any other race entering this country............
I have no problem with them and thank God I was never born to them. As parents they're ruthless taskmasters............LOL!
Living in South Florida and running a middle class condo here are my observations:
This is a very good turn of events. The smart people in Eurostan; those who have made something of their lives are looking for a place to run. The smartest ones are running to Florida and Texas. The ones who have old money but no brains will move to California and soon be parted from their money.
Here in South Florida we are seeing a buying frenzy fueled by people fleeing the cesspools in South America with fewer from Europe. The Canadian rush, to middle class condos like mine, has slowed to a trickle as their money has fallen way below the American dollar so my corner of South Florida doesn’t see many anymore. The very rich don’t come here.
The golf courses in South Florida are being snapped up and turned into housing complexes. We in America have always benefited from upheavals in Europe and now South America has joined the rush. These are smart productive people so we ought to welcome them. I say let’s skim off all the smart Brits Germans Italians French and other good people in Eurostan and add them to our fold. Let Eurostan sink under the weight of its suicidal self-inflected waves of muslim animals.
“Chinese buyers led the pack for the fourth straight year,”
A friend recently went to a graduation at UCLA. He said 90% of the grads were Chinese.
The course will reverse on its own. It always does. Foreign investors often think real estate here is undervalued, so they start buying it up. Then they find out America is a big country and there’s a reason the prices are so low, and they sell for a loss.
Giving away our country for a buck.
ping
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