Canadian and Chinese buyers help fuel 50% jump to a new record
Foreigners are buying U.S. homes at a record rate, helping push up prices in coveted coastal cities already squeezed by supply shortages, reports The Wall Street Journal.
In all, foreign buyers and recent immigrants purchased $153 billion of residential property in the U.S. in the year ended in March, nearly a 50% jump from a year earlier, according to a National Association of Realtors report released Tuesday.
That surpassed the previous record for foreign investment set in 2015, when foreigners purchased nearly $104 billion of U.S. residential property.
The dramatic increase was unexpected given the strong U.S. dollar, turmoil in the political arena and restrictions on Chinese buyers looking to take money out of the country, all of which were predicted to damp demand.
“It was surprising that it increased and the fact that it increased quite substantially is even more surprising,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the Realtors association, told the Journal. “This is not insignificant activity. They are pushing up the prices.”
Information from The Wall Street Journal
