By Marty Hope | Calgary Herald
A sagging loonie and a gradually improving Arizona resale housing market have taken a bite of Canadian snowbirds’ appetite for buying homes in the Sonoran Valley resale sector, say industry experts.
During a five-year run, ending in 2013, Canadian buyers led a charge into the valley taking advantage of a crippled housing market along with many thousands of foreclosures and a Canadian dollar that sometimes climbed above par on the foreign exchange. Actually, there was a time during that span when Canadians were the largest segment of out-of-state buyers laying down cash for Arizona real estate.
Nowadays, not so much.
“Canadians have backed away somewhat from the Sunbelt markets due to two things — the shrinking Canadian dollar and the normalization of housing markets there,” says Tom Burk, associate broker in Calgary-based Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, which has a long history of working in the U.S. resale industry.
