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According to a report published in The Wall Street Journal, foreign buyers, who nearly vanished during the COVID pandemic, are returning to the United States and buying in droves, maintaining the price of the most expensive homes in the country exactly where realtors want them.
Got a Plan to Take Them There? Begin with the largest economy in South America. If you’ve already heard this, please stop us: Thousands of the incumbent’s supporters stormed the Capitol after the bruising presidential election. Brazil suffered the same fate nearly a year after the incident in the United States. However, tensions were high and some Brazillians desired to leave even a few months prior to the attempted palace coup in the name of former president Jair Bolsonaro. According to the WSJ, a Miami condo developer has seen a 30% increase in Brazilian buyers since October.
Europeans are turning to the United States for a fresh start as a result of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the ensuing energy and food shortages. China is now our destination. After roughly three years of zealous lockdowns that restricted Chinese nationals’ access to the US property market and effectively shut them out, the Xi Jinping regime ended its zero COVID policy.
Keep in mind that we are not referring to your crowded, ill, and exhausted masses that long to breathe freely.
These people are obese. They had planned to add second homes and pied-à-terres to their real estate portfolios prior to the pandemic. The loosening of COVID restrictions and the sociopolitical circumstances in their respective nations are merely igniting a new fire under them:
According to the WSJ, The Happening actor Mark Wahlberg recently sold his enormous Los Angeles mansion to a Chinese billionaire. The property was listed for $87.5 million in November, but it ended up selling for $55 million, or “Marky Mark-to-Market.”
According to Sebastian Steinau of the Corcoran Group, he sold two Manhattan apartments at the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Nomad for $6.5 million and $3.975 million to buyers from Austria and Germany. He stated that the Austrian client wanted to own more diverse properties in addition to fearing war.
Strength Test: The Corcoran Group reported a 25% increase in foreign visitors to their properties in January 2023, primarily from China and the Middle East. According to Levine, the relatively weaker dollar in comparison to the fourth quarter is one reason why international buyers are showing an increased interest in the United States. The United States dollar hit a 20-year high last year, but investors are now speculating that this could be the beginning of a multi-year decline as Federal Reserve rate hikes slow.
