Foreign home buyers part of the Florida boom

[Brickell]

Two articles saying how big of stake foreign home buyers have in Florida real estate in general and Miami in particular, up to 15% of total home sales.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0715/p01s03-ussc.html

http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/st...11/daily46.html

Some interesting stats:

Most of those buyers, the survey shows, chose South Florida. About 30.4 percent reported buying in Miami-Fort Lauderdale and 5.8 percent said they purchased property in West Palm Beach.

Other hot areas were Central Florida and the Gulf Coast.

Nearly 23 percent of buyers said they made their purchase in Orlando, 13.7 percent said Naples-Fort Myers and 9.9 percent each said either Tampa-St. Petersburg or Sarasota was their pick.

Only 7.6 percent of foreign buyers bought homes elsewhere in the state, FAR said.

The international homebuyers were not only the "Latin American investor" invoked by so many real estate salespeople in South Florida. In fact, though investors came from more than 100 countries, most - 58 percent - were European. Of those, more than half were from the United Kingdom, which accounted for one-third of all international home purchases.

Another third of international buyers did come from South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

[asonj23]

So are these homebuyers essentially investors or are they actually relocating?

[monsoon]

A lot of them are investors who are tired of the state of the poor economies in Western Europe. Its discussed almost daily now on CNBCW when the European Market shows are on.

[asonj23]

It seems good for Florida in that they are paying taxes on property and are not using public resources nor are they adding to the traffic woes of most of South and Central Florida.

[RiversideGator]

I think this is yet another manifestation of the confidence foreigners have in the US economy and our prospects for the future. This is a good thing. For more on the robust American economy, check this: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentar...7_14_05_LK.html

[Brickell]

It seems good for Florida in that they are paying taxes on property and are not using public resources nor are they adding to the traffic woes of most of South and Central Florida.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The problem is that it drives up prices for those of us that actually live here. It also creates ghost towns (like many Florida cities in the summer anyway) where liveablity become and issue, ie. everythign shuts down in the summer because even though there's a few thousand homes, there's only a few hundred residents. I'd rather have people living in our communities, but I accept this as part of the normal cycle of economics. Reminds me of the 80's when everyone was in fear of Japan buying up America one office building and golf course at a time.

[csmurphy8885]

It wonderful to think of our state as one of the most beautiful destinations in the world, and as such, we have learned to accept our fate as a vacation destination. I think alot of thought is focased on this as a basis for economic planning. We can balance the summer time out with the snow birds in the winter though the spending force of the two are entirely different.

[Florida]

^well said!