- DSNews - https://dsnews.com -

Coming to America

FloridaWhat are foreign nationals wanting a piece of American real estate looking for? A report by Trulia [1] reveals that big cities and warm destinations top the list of this group of homebuyers. While fewer foreign nationals were searching for homes in the U.S. compared to a year ago, Trulia said that there was a growing interest in finding homes here for citizens of some countries.

The report found that searches originating from foreign countries for all active for-sale and for-rent properties on Trulia from July to September fell slightly to 1.8 percent of all searches from 2 percent during the same period in 2017.

While citizens of Canada and the United Kingdom, still made up the bulk of these buyers searching for homes in the U.S., the report saw a surge from countries like Brazil and Mexico where searches were up 1.5 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points respectively. It also saw increased interest from South Korea, Japan, and China.

While looking for homes in the U.S., the report indicated, these homebuyers preferred big metros like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago or beach destinations such as Florida. In fact, Florida took five of the 15 most-searched metros. They included Miami, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, and West Beach.

Of all the homebuyers searching for these destinations, Trulia said that searches from Canada accounted for 21.9 percent, 19.5 percent, and 25.1 percent for Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, and West Palm Beach.

For searches from Mexico, the report found that 60.1 percent of searches in El Paso, Texas originated from across the border. San Diego and Houston received the highest share of searches from Mexico, the report revealed. Similarly, 45.2 percent of searches in Buffalo, New York came from Canada.

The report also found that the greatest interest of South Korean homebuyers was for residences in Atlanta, given that the metro was home to a "thriving Korean population, with its own Koreatown and South Korea-headquartered Kia's U.S. manufacturing base nearby."

To read the complete report, click here [2].