Florida: Foreign Buyers Flock to Sunshine State

REALTOR® Magazine Online
Foreign buyers are adding fuel to the U.S. housing boom, especially in Florida where they account for a solid 15 percent of all home sales and make up a growing share of real estate practitioners’ business volume.

That’s according to the just-published results of a survey by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, which focuses on sales to foreign buyers in the Sunshine State but also provides general insights on the homebuying preferences of this significant buyer segment.

Of the nearly 1,000 REALTORS® who responded to the May 2005 survey, 87 percent said they completed at least one home sale transaction with a foreign buyer in the previous 12 months. Of those, 66 percent had one to four of such deals; 13 percent had between five and 10; and 10 percent completed 10 or more.

When asked whether home sales to international buyers made up a larger percentage of their business, nearly half of respondents—49 percent—said yes. Another 45 percent said their dealings with foreign buyers have remaining about the same, and just 6 percent reported a decline.

While Florida’s international homebuyers came from more than 100 countries in all areas of the world, the majority—58 percent—of all home purchases by foreign buyers in Florida were made by Europeans. And more than half of the buyers from Europe are based in the United Kingdom.

Spanish-speaking buyers from South and Central America and the Caribbean Islands comprised 29 percent, while buyers from Brazil accounted for 3 percent. There also were buyers from Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, but results for those areas did not yield a large enough sample size to analyze.

For both Latin American and European buyers, the main reason for purchasing a home in Florida was to have rental property for investment. More than a third of Europeans and 23 percent of Latin Americans planned to use the home as a vacation venue. And nearly a third of Latin American homebuyers planned to use the property as a second home for their part-time work in the U.S.

NAR worked in conjunction with the Florida Association of REALTORS® to conduct the survey. Their goal was to fill a gap in formal research on international homebuyers and to better understand why those buyers purchased homes in the United States, what types of properties they bought, and for what purpose.

The full report can be viewed online in PDF format.

To learn more on international real estate, visit REALTOR.org’s International section. You also can visit REALTOR® Magazine Online’s new resource on Servicing Your Multicultural Clients, which includes articles and tips on successfully working with clients from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.