Friday, July 28, 2017

Home purchases by foreigners in the US

What is the profile of the international home purchase activity in the US?

About a year ago I mentioned some of the characteristics of the types of properties foreign buyers were buying, depending on where they are from.  This blog here is more general in nature and shows how much, globally, each country participated in the buying binge in the US.

An image is worth 1000 words...  the National Association of Realtors put out a study and infographic that says it all, entitled:  Where are most international buyers from?
Please check out the NAR's  2016 International Profile.

.. which translates in the following figures:


Thank you for reading,
Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
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Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Seasonality of real estate sales prices - Silicon Valley

To piggy-back on one of my earlier blogs on the evolution of prices in the Silicon Valley, here is an updated graph showing the median price of a residential piece of property in the County of Santa Clara, between a bit before Jan 1, 2015, and right now: July of 2017.





















Click on the graph to see it larger.

The green arrows point to a seasonal low in Aug./ September (corresponding to August sales) and a movement downwards in january, which corresponds to sales in November and December.
As mentioned in my previous blog, it does not mean necessarily that the same property will sell for less in December than in January, but it does mean that more properties of a lower value sold in November / December than in January.  One can see that in February the median price starts going higher (these are the January sales).

Will the same property sell for less during those times?  It is open to question, but my experience is that a prime piece of real estate, with good location, very good condition etc... will sell for about the same price.  By experience, if a property is not top notch, it may suffer somewhat from the timing.   Otherwise, these ups and downs relate to the fact that:
- many people are away during the months of July and August,
- many people wait for right after Labor Day to put a property on the market (feeling that fewer people will be in the market to buy a home, because away on vacation),
- fewer people are looking to buy in November and December because of the holidays and the weather.
- statistically, more homes go on the market during those slower times because they have to.  This can  also explain why the sales price is lower.

Thank you for reading!
Francis

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