Foreign Purchases of US Residential Real Estate Nearly Doubles

Dennis Norman

I may be getting desperate to find something good to write about with regard to the Housing Market, but nonetheless I found some good news today! According to a report titled “Foreign Investment in U.S. Real Estate” that was released recently by the National Association of REALTORS®, investment in residential real estate in the U.S. by foreigners shot up by almost 80% for the 12-month period ending April 2010 from the 12 month period ending April 2009.

For the 12 month period ending April 2010 foreign purchases of residential real estate in the U.S. totaled $64 billion which is almost double the $36 billion in foreign purchases for the 12-month period ending April 2009.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of this activity took place in States that are popular vacation destinations, which also include some of the states where home prices have been beat down the hardest and foreclosure activity the greatest. Florida led the way with 22 percent of the foreign purchases being in the sunshine state, followed by California at 12 percent, Arizona at 11 percent and Texas at 8 percent.

So there you have it, some good news!