Wealthy foreigners from around the globe are taking advantage of America's housing bust to snap up U.S. properties at cut-rate prices — helping local markets rebound in the process.
“We've seen foreign investors buy $10 million to $20 million worth of property in a single trip,” says Peter Loewy of Los Angeles-based Teles Properties. “They think this is a good place to park money, and it's less expensive than their real estate back home.”
A recent National Association of Realtors (NAR) study estimated that foreigners and immigrants who've lived here less than two years spent $82.5 billion on U.S. investment property in the 12 months ended March 31, 2012. That's about 9% of the total paid for all U.S. housing purchases during the period.
A big part of my job is helping our clients project the most likely scenarios for the housing market. Now that we know who will be President, my job just got easier because we have four years of experience with Obama and a divided Congress, so we know what we are getting.
Sixty-five percent of U.S. housing markets are worse off today than they were four years ago according to the California-based real estate research firm RealtyTrac.
We've all heard that the housing bubble's pop led to thousands of foreclosures, but its interactive maps like this that really show how prevalent the problem was — and still is. Part of a project on 30 election issues, the map below uses data from RealtyTrac to display foreclosure rates by county.
After nine consecutive months of appreciation, August was the first month where home values decreased by 0.1% to $152,100, according to Zillow.
Consider Minneapolis, Minn. You could’ve bought, out of foreclosure, a three-bedroom, two-bath house of 1,356 square feet on a quarter acre lot for about $29,000. It needed a lot of work, but houses in the neighborhood recently sold for $75,000.
Investors are buying homes at a more rapid pace than ever before, and this time their investments actually make sense. Most are buying homes below replacement cost, or at prices that allow for a reasonable rental return.
