Are You Getting A Piece of The Action From Foreign Buyers?

Foreign nationals accounted for $82.5 billion, or 8.9%, of the $928 billion spent on U.S. residential real estate from April 2011 through March 2012, according a June survey from the National Association of Realtors. That was up 24% from $66.4 billion the previous year.  More than 50% of sales over the past year occurred in just five states, including Arizona.  The sales are even more important considering that nearly 82 percent of all international sales were cash.

Foreign buyers have flooded the U.S. housing market, taking advantage of weaker prices, favorable exchange rates, and, in some cases, record-low mortgage rates.  International buyers came from all over the globe, but Canada, China (The People’s Republic of China including Hong Kong), Mexico, India, and the United Kingdom accounted for 55 percent of all international transactions, according to the survey. Canada and China remain the fastest-growing home countries. Canada accounted for 24 percent of international sales while China accounted for 11 percent, up from nine percent in 2011. Mexico was third with eight percent of sales and India and the U.K. both accounted for six percent.

Canadians in particular have become predominant buyers of rentals and second homes in the Arizona real estate market, attracted by Arizona’s mild climate and low home prices.

If you’re not marketing to the international buyer, you’re missing out on a big part of the current market.  So, what are you doing to get your share of this International market?  Do you know how much of the international market is using your website? If you’re running Google Analytics or similar tracking on your website, you do.

Are you networking with international agents and brokers?  Engage with them, build relationships with them on LinkedIn, ActiveRain, Facebook, Twitter; any of the social networking sites you’re using.  

Understand what draws these buyers to Arizona and be ready to reinforce their thinking.  And if you don’t speak the native language of a particular area you’re marketing too, it’s not a bad idea to try to learn the basics, enough to communicate and make them feel welcome.  Or have at the ready, in your arsenal of full service tools, translators you can call upon.