Foreign Buyers Go Home | North Salem Real Estate

The boomlet in foreign purchase of US residential property is apparently over. Purchases by international buyers fell 17 percent last year, down approximately $14 billion from the previous year.

Purchases by foreign buyers fell to an estimated $68.2 billion. The National Association of Realtors attributed the decline is attributed to economic slowdowns in a number of major foreign economies, tighter U.S. credit standards and unfavorable exchange rates.

The survey, which asked Realtors® to report their international business activity within the U.S. for the 12 months ending March 2013, showed that total international sales were $68.2 billion

“Foreign buyers are experiencing hurdles not only abroad, but also here in the U.S. when it comes to purchasing property,” said NAR President Gary Thomas, broker-owner of Evergreen Realty in Villa Park, Calif. “Difficult economic conditions, particularly in Europe, have impacted foreign buyers, but several factors in the U.S. have also affected their purchasing power here. Tight credit standards have made financing challenging for immigrants, and low housing inventories have made finding a house difficult.”

The decline in foreign sales may put to rest fears that foreign owners will displace domestic ones. More than $7 billion of the $82 billion in home sales in 20112 was by Chinese, who are now the second largest foreign home purchasers after Canadians. They’re buying high-end, multimillion-dollar homes from California to New York and paying cash.

“They’re probably the top 1 percent of the Mandarin speakers that are coming from China,” Brent Chang, a Coldwell Banker realtor in Southern California, told Fox News. “They’re really the people who have their own businesses or maybe were part of the government.”

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