International buyers pull back from the U.S. market

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The amount of existing home purchases from international buyers fell 36% between April 2023 and March 2024, according to the National Association of Realtors. Those buyers bought 54,300 existing homes during that period. That’s the lowest level of international investment since NAR began tracking it in 2009. Here’s other key data from that timespan they studied:
  • The total dollar volume of foreign buyer residential purchases was $42 billion, which accounted for 2% of $2.1 trillion of the dollar volume of existing home sales.
  • 50% of foreign buyers paid all cash, compared to 28% among all existing-home buyers.
  • Here’s a breakdown of the top foreign buyers by country and their total spending:
    • Canada – 13% ($5.9 billion)
    • China – 11% ($7.5 billion)
    • Mexico – 11% ($2.8 billion)
    • India – 10% ($4.1 billion)
    • Colombia – 4% ($0.7 billion)
  • Here were the top destinations for foreign buyers:
    • Florida – 20%
    • Texas – 13%
    • California – 11%
    • Arizona – 5%
    • Georgia – 4%

Our take
International buyers are running into the same hurdles as domestic buyers, namely high prices and tight supply. But they’ve got one extra hurdle in their way–a strong U.S. dollar. That is making already expensive properties even pricier. This all explains why international buyers are pulling out of the market. That said, this is still an important group of buyers to study. As this report showed, half of all foreign-buyer purchases were all-cash deals, so they clearly have the means to put up the money. That’s huge.