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
Price your property
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Foreign buyers - California - US

The number of sales to foreign buyers rose once again over the past year, although international buyers are shifting their preferences from luxury homes to less-pricey properties.

NAR (National Association or Realtors) economists think the change in the price of homes international buyers are after may be due to overall higher home prices, along with a stronger U.S. dollar, which both cost foreign buyers more these days.

“Weaker economic growth throughout the world, devalued foreign currencies and financial market turbulence” all had an impact on foreign buyers over the past year, said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.  “While these obstacles led to a cool down in sales from nonresident foreign buyers, the purchases by recent immigrant foreigners rose, resulting in the overall sales dollar volume still being the second highest since 2009.”

Foreign buyers purchased $102.6 billion of residential property in the U.S. between April 2015 and March 2016, according to NAR’s report. The number of properties purchased rose 2.8 percent to 214,885. The value of homes bought by foreigners was typically higher than the median price of all U.S. homes.

Experts say a slight drop in dollar volume is due to the types of properties purchased, and the locations of those properties. There are signs that foreign buyers have begun looking beyond higher-priced markets like San Francisco and New York to purchase properties in smaller, less-expensive cities in the Southeast and Midwest.

Chinese purchasers continued to outpace all others, with their dollar volume exceeding the total of the next four ranked countries combined. Their dollar volume of sales, at $27.3 billion, was three times as much as Canadian buyers, who were ranked second. Chinese buyers also bought the most expensive homes at a median price of $542,084.

Five states accounted for half of foreign buyer purchases, according to the NAR report: Florida, (22 percent), California (15 percent), Texas (10 percent), Arizona and New York (each at 4 percent).

 It is interesting to note that California is home to about 25% of all of the foreign-born population of the US.  Florida has only 9% of the foreign-born population of the US, as shown on the graph below:

 

Thank you for reading,
Francis
 

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates
A worthy local non-profit to remember: Community Services Agency in Mountain View.

Foreign investments in the U.S. real estate market.

Foreign investment in the US real estate market.

Year-in year-out Realtors in the Bay Area deal quite a bit with foreign buyers.  It is interesting to keep some perspective on this phenomenon at the national level.

From March 2013 to March 2014, foreign purchases in US real estate increased 26% from the year before, to a total of $92.2 billion (National Association of Realtors Profile of International Home Buying Activity).

4 states accounted for 55% of the total: Florida, California, Arizona and Texas.

Nearly 60% of reported international transactions were all cash, compared to just one-third of domestic home purchases.  - Still 1/3 is an impressive number!

54% of all international transactions last year came from Canada, China, Mexico, India and the U.K.
Clearly, the United States remain a destination of choice for investors for its stability, and future prospects.

Separately, but still relevant to this subject, it is good to note that the foreign-born population by state looks like this:
- California: 25.4%
- New York: 10.8%
- Texas: 10.4%
- Florida: 9.2%
- the rest (~44% ) is divided between the other states.

Do you have an input on the subject?  Please let me know.!

Thanks for reading.

Francis

Silicon Valley real estate

Trends: Local prices and graphs.
A noteworthy local non-profit event:  Coalition on Homelessness, SF

US Cities Dominate Foreign Investors Picks

As a follow up on one of my previous blogs, I thought this was interesting information to keep in mind and to keep in perspective, when reflecting on prices nationwide.  Bottom line, the U.S. remain the destination of choice for foreign investors, after looking at all Cities on all 5 continents.

By a wide margin, foreign investors see the United States as the most "stable and secure" country for real-estate investment, according to a new survey ("Ranking of global Cities...".) from the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate. Overall, the United States was ranked as one of the hottest investment markets for industrial, office and multifamily real estate. The cities of New York, San Francisco, Houston, and Los Angeles were rated to be particularly appealing, but the survey found an increasing interest in cities beyond these major destinations.

• In the 12 months that ended March 2013, foreign buyers spent $68.2 billion on single-family homes in the United States, or about 7 percent of all home sales.
• According to the survey, the United States is seen as the best market in terms of capital appreciation and for real estate purchases in 2014.
• Thirty-nine percent of survey respondents have a more optimistic perspective than they did a year ago regarding the U.S. real estate market.
  
• More than 80 percent of respondents in the survey indicated they will increase their portfolio size in the United States. 31% are planning a “major net increase.”
• Multifamily units were the top property type preferred by foreign investors, followed by industrial property.

Read the full story from Trey Garrison at HousingWire. 

Thanks for reading,
Francis

Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates

Great local Nonprofit in the Valley:  Community Services Agency.