Hot spots for global homebuyers
It's been a long time since the Florida real estate market has been called hot, at least by Floridians. But if you ask buyers from out of the country they may have a totally different answer.
Foreign buyers are not new to Florida. There has been a long history of buyers from other countries buying investment and second homes here. A lot of that market fell victim to the national and global financial downturns, but a recent analysis has determined that foreign investors with a lot of cash are jumping on the opportunity to pickup homes in the United States before the prices start to move up.
Using public record data compiled by real estate data analysis from DataQuick, Inman News, an on line real estate publication, has identified the 10 most popular areas in the United States for foreign homebuyers. Buyers in the foreign buyer market were chosen based on the percentage of all homes sold in the area from May 2011 through January 2012 for which a foreign mailing address was listed for the buyer on the property deed. Keep in mind, however, not all foreign buyers use a foreign mailing address.
Here are the 10 hot spots for global homebuyers:
Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla.
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.
Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Fla.
North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Fla.
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, Fla.
Phoenix-Mesa-Glendale, Ariz.
New York County, N.Y. (Manhattan)
Honolulu, Hawaii
Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla.
Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev.
Six of the 10 areas on this list are in Florida, which further supports a report in February of the top 10 turn around towns where 8 out of 10 were in Florida. On the top 10 hot spots for global buyer list, the region that includes Anna Maria Island came in number 4. On the top 10 turn around towns the region that includes Anna Maria Island came in number 5.
Nationally, during 2011, foreign buyers from Canada accounted for 23 percent of sales with China coming in next at 9 percent. India, Mexico, and surprisingly, the United Kingdom all shared 7 percent.
Buyers from Canada were the single biggest source of foreign buyers in the United States. Canada is experiencing a real estate boom, which some fear will result in a bubble, increasing their national average for home sales in January to $351,379 in U.S. dollars. By comparison the average sale price in the U.S. for January was $201,200.
In our area, 4th placed North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, had about 6.5 percent of all homes purchased between May 2011 and January 2012 showing a foreign mailing address on the property deed. These sales were about evenly spread between the metro area's two counties, Manatee and Sarasota.
Resale condos were more popular in Manatee County, with foreign buyers accounting for 12.3 percent of purchases. New homes were foreign buyers' choice in Sarasota County making up 13.1 percent of sales.
The top three foreign buyers in our area were from Canada, United Kingdom and Germany. This is not surprising, since buyers from these countries have long had a well established community of their countrymen in Manatee and Sarasota counties.
Florida not only has a hot hot hot weather climate it now also has a hot hot hot global real estate climate. I'm not sure which one I like better, but they both go really well with a cold cold cold beer.
