Foreign House Hunters Set Their Sights on Hollywood

When it comes to U.S. residential real estate, Los Angeles is the primary gateway destination for international buyers coming from across both oceans and up from Latin America. In the latest data of from Realtor.com of international buyers of U.S. properties, Los Angeles was the top U.S. city searched by international buyers last month. Los Angeles was especially popular with buyers from Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Miami came in second, scoring in popularity with buyers from Brazil and Spain. Other cities on the top ten list included Orlando, Las Vegas, New York, Detroit, Houston, Fort Lauderdale, San Francisco and Chicago. However, it appears that foreign tastes in specific markets can be wildly eclectic. For example, the top U.S. destination for Swiss property purchasers had plenty of brotherly love for Philadelphia, while Canadians put their chips down on Las Vegas and Japanese have a yen for San Diego. (Okay, we exhausted our pun quota for the week.) On the flip side, U.S. buyers tapping into Realtor.com for foreign residential real estate in August were mostly looking into Italian properties. Jamaica came in second as the overseas destination of choice, followed by Mexico, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Spain, Canada, France, the Bahamas and Greece. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), 28 percent of the organization’s 28 percent of organization’s members reported having international clients. NAR also estimated that foreign sales approximately seven percent of $1.2 trillion existing housing sales market.